


Everything's Better with Friends

by WritingRegularly



Category: Amphibia (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 62,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29533848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingRegularly/pseuds/WritingRegularly
Summary: The last thing that Anne expected when she opened that music box was to be transported to a strange, alien world. Luckily, her friends, Sasha and Marcy, were transported right next to her. In fact, they arrived only a few feet away; and not, as one might expect, outside of a military installation and the heart of the capital, respectively.Now, trapped deep in the jungles and swamps of Amphibia, Anne and her friends must brave the wilds in search of a way home, together. Anne isn't worried though. With Marcy's brains, Anne's strength, and Sasha's silver tongue, there's no challenge ahead that could break their bonds of friendship.At least, that's what Anne wants to believe.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 77





	1. Even Becoming Lost

There was a flash of light, and then Anne was face down in the mud.

Stumbling to her feet, Anne wiped the grime from her face and opened her eyes. But instead of the open park and abandoned playground that she and her friends were ‘chilling’ in, she was instead greeted by a beautiful vista; a view of a great forest reaching out as far her eyes could see, before ending at a line of harsh, unfamiliar mountains. In the sky above her, strange insects buzzed away, far larger than her perspective told her they should be.

“Huh?” She said, before looking around further, only to find that the buildings and roads that had surrounded her a moment ago had vanished, replaced by overhanging vines and lichen.

Taking a deep breath, Anne tried to calm down. But the smell of wet dirt, of stale water and decomposing plant life, only made her heart beat faster. She had been with her friends, and there was a music box, and when they opened it, there was a flash. And then…

The music box! Opening her eyes, Anne searched frantically around herself, before finding it half buried in the mud next to her. Relief flooded her system as she grabbed it, and pulled it free. The hinge squeaked loudly as she flipped the lid open, preparing to ‘wake up’ from this sudden journey.

There was no flash of light.

Anne waited a moment, before closing the lid and opening it again, eliciting the same squeak. Still nothing. The sense of worry in her chest started to grow as she tried vainly to return home, but received nothing. “No no no no,” Anne whispered. She struggled with the box for several minutes, before accepting that whatever magic had transported her wasn’t going to return.

“Sasha?” Anne called out, hoping for a response. “Marcy? Are either of you out there?”

There was no response.

“This…this isn’t funny, girls.” She said, knowing that there was no way that this could be some kind of elaborate joke.

The jungle loomed in front of her imposingly. She was standing on the edge of a large cliff, several hundred meters tall, with nothing but jagged rocks gathering at the bottom. If she was going to go anywhere, it would be through the canopy in front of her. Just out of vision, where the shadows gathered deepest, she swore she could see things slither and slink around under the cover of the trees.

Someone would come for her eventually, right? If she just waited?

Anne shook that thought from her head. She wasn’t even sure where she was. She wasn’t even sure if anyone knew where she was. It was entirely possible, and likely, that she was completely alone here.

She swallowed nervously.

“Girls? Can you hear me?” She called out again, and once again received nothing but her echo. With much care, Anne slipped the music box in her hands into the bag on her back, and took one final look at the view before her.

Tentatively, Anne took her first few steps into the world of Amphibia. The ground underneath her shoes felt squishy, and was annoyingly sticky, as she headed deeper into the undergrowth. In her mind, she was expecting to walk a few feet before finding a road, or a river, or anything really that could lead her towards a town where she could call for help. But as she walked, and the minutes pilled on, she began to realize just how easy it was to get lost in a place like this.

Oh wait, she had a cell phone on her!

Stopping, Anne fished the phone out of her bag; expertly tapping on the buttons until she was ready to call for help. Only to feel her mounting dread double as she realized there was no reception in whatever world she’d wound up in. Her GPS similarly failed to function.

Fighting for control of her emotions, Anne stopped to rest against a nearby tree. This place, this…world, looked so alien from what she knew. Even the trees grew at strange angles, filled themselves with holes that made no sense to look at. She idly watched as a small fly landed on the tree next to her, and burrowed into its crannies without much issue, presumably to wait for better times. She kinda wished she could do the same.

She had just decided to head off again when a strange, unnatural sound hit her ears.

It was a kind of crunching. The kind of prowling noise that immediately hit Anne deep in her instincts as ‘something I should really stay away from.’ But through the thick leaves and coverings of the jungle, she could hardly figure out which direction it came from, much less where it was. Since her instincts were screaming at her so much, Anne decided it was only wise to listen to them and let them take control of her body.

She found herself climbing the tree behind her with surprising swiftness, the sharp angles and pointed rings cutting into her hands. The entire tree rattled as she swung up into the leaves, and held her breath just in time to witness the beast strike.

Bursting out of the foliage, the creature stabbed deep into the earth where Anne was standing a second ago. Despite this, Anne could only look at it in wonder and confusion.

The creature resembled a gigantic insect, but not any that Anne had seen before. The top half of the creature was that of a wasp. Its wings were folded onto its back while not in use, and it trundled around on spindly, spined legs that pierced deep into the mud as it moved. Its bottom half was like a scorpion, ending in a gigantic tail with a deadly looking bulbed point on the end. Said tail stabbed into the earth a few times, before the creature pulled its limb back to nest between its wings. But most importantly, it was nearly three times Anne’s size.

Anne did her best to remain silent as the beast scanned around. Having found no prey under its weight, it was naturally unhappy, and cheated. Her heart beat in her chest, slamming her against the branch under her as the insect prowled around. Its head snapped left and right, searching for any hint of where its target had gone.

A tense minute passed. And then another. Anne’s lungs burned for air, but she refused to take a breath. Sweat from the fear of discovery started to coat her body. She felt unnaturally cold.

And then, mercifully, the insect left.

Anne let out a sigh of relief, and shifted her weight.

Which was enough to completely snap the branch she was clinging to, sending her falling to the ground with a loud thump and a painful groan. The scream of ‘wah’ she let out as she fell also didn’t help much either.

She was back on her feet in a flash, but it was already too late. The slow, blessed sounds of the creature leaving had suddenly taken a turn towards the much worse sounds of it rushing back through the bushes to attack her. She barely had a moment before it burst through once more and stabbed down at her.

In that instant, with fight or flight exploding to the forefront of her mind, adrenaline coursing through her body, and nothing left to lose, Anne felt her entire body lurch to the side just in time to avoid being impaled. Scrambling away on her back, Anne sprung back to her feet.

She took one look at the monster in front of her and let out a scream as she ran away.

There was no need to turn around, because the sound of falling trees made it clear that the monster was already in pursuit. Her heart beat painfully in her chest as she stumbled more than ran forward, her mind pushing her legs faster than she thought possible. Her scream pierced through the jungle as she hurried away.

In reality, the chase didn’t last nearly as long as Anne would have liked. Which was, ‘until she got away.’ All it took was a simple misjudged jump for her to tumble head first back into the mud, sliding slightly from the speed she’d fallen. Instinctively, she kicked out to try and crawl away, but the ground was sticky; gripping at her like the claws of death. Every attempt to move out only pushed another part of her deeper into the muck.

It was all she could do to spin around onto her back. Above her, the creature hovered menacingly; the incessant buzzing of its wings drilling itself into Anne’s panicking mind. Her breath caught in her throat as she backed away pathetically, her shoe sticking to the soft ground and slipping off her foot as she did so. In desperation, Anne could only raise her arms in front of her face, preparing for the worst.

“Please! Please, no!”

The insect reared back, and Anne closed her eyes to prepare for the strike. In this mud, there was no chance of her adrenaline kicking back in and saving her.

But the strike never came.

A wave of mud splashed up against Anne’s face and when she removed it, her heart skipped a beat.

There was another human standing over her. Clothes stained with grime, face clenched in fury, hands gripping a worn down old tree branch, but undeniably holding her own against the stinger of the wasp. Sweat dripped down her arms as she parried the attack, knee deep in mud and clearly already half exhausted.

“Get away from her, you freak!”

“Sasha!” Anne cried, still too in shock to do anything except lay there. “Oh, you have no idea how happy I am to see you, I…”

“Now’s not a good time, Anne!” Sasha shouted back, quivering under the might of the beast.

“Right!” Struggling to her feet, Anne practically jumped over to Sasha’s side, grabbing the other side of the branch and adding her strength to their continued survival. With her help, the battle of muscles became equal. Neither side could gain an inch, but it was clear that time was on the side of the aggressor.

“I…I can’t keeping pushing forever!”

Gritting her teeth, Sasha glanced at something off to her right before swallowing harshly.

“Just a little longer, Anne. Hold on!”

She focused back just in time to duck under a bite from the head of the wasp, one that nearly took her own head off. She stumbled, but for once, the mud was on their side; its thick, unmoving nature helping glue them in place and provide a strong base to push from. Anne was next to dodge another attack, but responded with a swipe of her own, barely missing.

Glancing off to her right again, Sasha held her breath, counting down from three. The beast snapped aggressively as she waited for the right moment. Then the insect overextended.

“Marcy! Now!” Sasha shouted.

With what could only be described as a primal scream, another human literally lunged into the fray; falling from the trees above onto the back of their attacker. This one was marginally better equipped, touting a sharpened tree branch in her hands. The fire in her eyes told Anne that she was ready to pierce straight through this monster.

Or at least, that was the plan, until one of the wasp’s wings hit her as she fell; tossing her harmlessly to the side and landing face down in the mud. Lying still for a second, Marcy hesitantly raised a hand to show that she was okay.

Suddenly, the wasp pulled back. Sasha fell forwards to her knees as its head swivelled over to new, more defenceless prey. Rearing up, it hovered higher into the air before directing its deadly tail towards Marcy.

“Marcy!” Anne shouted, leaping forward through the mud instinctively. Self-preservation was well and good, but nothing could get her moving faster than trying to protect Marcy from herself. The mud flew under Anne’s feet as she practically tackled Marcy; sliding both of them forward from the force as the monster attacked, missing by inches.

Both of them were back on their feet in an instant, their limbs untangling with practiced efficiency. Sasha struggled her way over to them as well, raising her branch over her head like a club. Together, they stood between Anne and the bug like bouncers at a club.

Not that Anne was one to let them do everything alone. Reaching into her bag, she hastily pulled out a tennis racket, and slid between the girls to take her place alongside them.

“How did that even fit in there?” Marcy asked, not taking her eyes off the immediate threat, but her wandering mind still firing like a fast moving locomotive.

“It’s retractable,” Anne answered.

“Will you two focus, please?” Sasha said, prompting both of them to tighten their grips on their weapons and stare down the giant insect in front of them. The creature hovered ominously in front of them, but strangely kept its distance from the trio. Perhaps it was scared of actually having to fight for its food.

A cold chill swept through the arena, clinging to the sweat building on Anne’s neck. She felt perfectly in tune with the world around her; a serene sense of calm that comes from hitting the peak of fear and beginning your descent back down to Earth. The buzzing of the insect’s wings faded into nothing, replaced by the steady, rhythmic breathing of her friends next to her.

The wasp raised its head towards the sky, twitching it to the side strangely. And then, miraculously, it landed on all fours, and left, scuttling into the undergrowth until the noise of its passage faded into the background of the jungle.

Anne let out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding. Next to her, Marcy let her arms drop, shaking, as her own breath came out in a rushed hurry. Bending over, Marcy rested her weight on her knees.

“Urgh. I feel like I’m gonna throw up,” she said.

“Haha, same,” Anne said, leaning back, “What about you, Sasha?”

There was no response.

“Sasha?”

“Why would it leave…” Sasha said, looking around the swamp.

“Sasha!”

“Yeah? Oh!” Sasha said, as Anne threw herself at her and wrapped her arms around her chest. Genuinely, Sasha returned the affection.

“You saved my life!”

“Of course we did, you’re our friend! We’ve got your back.” Sasha said, squeezing back.

She flinched as Marcy wiggled her way between them, adding her own embrace to the hug. They waited for a minute like that, before Sasha took intuitive and pulled herself out.

“I can’t believe you’re both here! I…I was so scared it was just me.” Anne said.

Non-chalantely, Sasha shouldered the weapon and smiled; shooting occasional glances into the wilds. “Yeah, I appeared just a couple feet away from here. Found Marcy tangled up in a tree not much later. You though…”

Anne was immediately brought back to reality, “Yeah. That thing would have… Good thing you showed up.”

“Still, we’re all here!” Marcy said, twirling around, “Isn’t it great, Anne? We’ve been transported to a fantastical, mysterious land! This is just like Ratopia 3.”

Anne and Sasha shared a look together. Slowly, Sasha raised her hand, before lowering it again. Anne, however, had no such tact.

“Great? Marcy, what are you talking about? I was just nearly eaten by a giant wasp!”

“Mecoptera.”

“What?”

“It was a Mecoptera.”

“I don’t care what it was, it tried to eat me!” Anne said.

“And we fought it off! Our first victory!”

“It ran away.” Sasha pointed out.

“Eh,” Marcy said, waving her hand dismissively.

“Don’t ‘eh’ me.”

“Eh!” Marcy replied, shouting.

Rolling her eyes, Sasha detached herself from the conversation, walking a couple of feet away.

Trading quick looks between them, Anne quickly raised the question that was on everyone’s mind.

“So…uh, this isn’t like…a prank you girls are doing, right? Like a scare challenge? Because I’m willing to admit that I lost.”

Both of the other girls just stared at her. “I mean, bring out the book, right? I’ll just…put my name right in there if we can go home now.”

Sharing an awkward glance, Sasha walked back over. “Anne…this isn’t a prank.”

“I mean, it’s your fault we’re here anyway. How could it be a prank?” Marcy said, accusingly.

“What? I didn’t do this!”

“Yeah you did, you opened the music box.”

“I…you’re the one who found it in the first place!”

“Yeah, and then you stole it. It’s your fault we’re here.”

“I only stole it because Sasha told me to, I didn’t want…”

“Oh, there you go again, blaming Sasha for everything! Nothing’s ever your fault, is it, Anne?”

“This time it actually isn’t! You think I would have opened the box if I knew it would zoop us into some crazy death world?”

“Stop kidding yourself.”

“Shut up, both of you!” Sasha shouted, turning around suddenly. Anne and Marcy cowered slightly as she loomed over them. “We’ve barely been here for twenty minutes and we’re already fighting? I thought the two of you were friends!”

“I mean, she started it…”

“News flash, Marcy, we’re ALL responsible for this! You found the box, sure. But I convinced Anne to steal it. And Anne was the one who opened it! We’re not going to blame each other for this, got it?”

“Yes, Sasha.” They said in unison.

“Now listen,” Sasha said, sliding between the two of them. Her arms looped around their shoulders, pulling them together while she wiped her hands clean. So close, in fact, that they could feel the heart beats of the others; fast, and scared, and uncertain. She let them take a few deep, calming breaths, mostly to clear the air between them. “We’re going to get out of this, okay? Together.”

“But h…”

“We’re going to stick together.” Sasha said, looking over at Anne.

“We’re going to work together.” She said, looking back at Marcy.

“And we’re going to get home. Together. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Say it with me, ‘together.”

“Together.” As they spoke, their heartbeats slowed.

“With Marcy’s brains, and Anne’s brawn, and my silver tongue, we’re going to be okay. Okay?”

“Th…thanks, Sasha. You’re right.” Anne said, rubbing the back of her head. “We’re friends, we shouldn’t be fighting.”

“Of course I’m right.” Sasha responded, picking up Anne’s shoe. “Here. You nearly lost this.”

Anne took it graciously, and slipped it back over her sock. “So what do we do then?”

There was a moment of silence. Other than the gentle purr of unseen insects, and the creaking of old trees being strangled under the weight of heavy vines and foliage. Looking away from her friends, Sasha let her hand drift to her chin.

“Anne, do you still have the music box that brought us here?”

Springing to attention, Anne swung her bag off her back. “Yeah! But…um…”

Pulling it out, Anne passed it over to Sasha. The wooden finish on the box was already starting to wear under the friction of the bag, and the gems inlaid on the surface lacked any shine. The tell-tale squeak of the lid opening told her that it still wasn’t working.

“Great. So Anne broke it.” Sasha said, tossing it back to her carelessly.

“Hey! I didn’t break anything!” Anne replied, hurt.

Sasha put her hands up, “Hey, hey, there’s no need to get mad. Mistakes happen. You’ll make up for it eventually, I’m sure of it. You always do.” She gave a small smile as Anne looked down at the box sadly.

“It’s different.” Marcy said suddenly, drawing attention to herself.

“The gems on the top, they were a different colour when we…stole it. See?” Marcy continued, pointing at a set of gemstones set on the lid of the music box. They were a drained grey colour, noticeably out of place on the shiny box.

“Were they?”

Anne and Sasha shared a look of confusion. Marcy just leaned in closer to the box and ran her hand over the jewels. “I’m sure of it. What if…”

Pulling herself straight, Marcy smiled. “What if they’re like…like batteries? And they power whatever caused the box to send us here?”

Snapping her fingers together, Sasha pointed at her friend. “Perfect! Good work, Marcy. See? We’re already finding our way back. All we gotta do is find some more of these fancy rocks, pop them into the box, and it’ll send us home!”

Anne let out a nervous laugh. “Haha, yeah. Listen though, I really didn’t break…”

Whatever Anne was going to say was cut off suddenly as a loud roar filled the air. Like lightning, all three girls snapped their heads towards the source, as more noises rose into the air in a cacophony of danger. The loud crunching of tree branches snapping as something larger than before lumbered towards them. Frozen in place, they glanced over at the worried expressions of their friends, before Sasha slowly crept backwards.

“Y…Y…You know w…what? May…maybe we should run first and talk later.”

Marcy quickly appeared at her side. “Yeah. That…that’s smart.”

Anne rushed to her other, grabbing her arm. “Great idea, Sash.”

Grabbing their hands, Sasha turned around. “Good, we agree then, now move!”

Pulled forward, it didn’t take long for each of the girls to break into a sprint, ducking and weaving through the woods as they hurried forward.

It took several minutes of hurrying; bound together and blindly escaping, before the sounds of pursuit and devastation finally started to die down and the jungle returned to its usual hum and bustle. Panting, Marcy finally let go of Sasha’s hand, bending over to rest her hands on her knees.

“Did…did we get away?”

Looking behind herself, Sasha honed in on their trail, focusing on it for several minutes in search of any kind of approaching danger. Unlike Marcy, Sasha was fit, and no more than a thin sheen of sweat covered her. Once she was certain they were clear, she smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, we did.”

“G…great.”

“So what do we do now?” Anne asked, leaning against a nearby tree and recoiling as a number of ants tried to scurry up her arm. Looking around, she noted that they had, by chance, stopped in a small clearing surrounded by a wall of heavy, fresh vines.

Glancing between her companions, Sasha noticed something different that lit a candle of concern in her mind. Their shadows were stretched long across the ground.

“It’s nearly night.” She said softly.

“Well, yeah,” Marcy responded, “It was, what, 4:30 when we left? Only an hour or two of daylight left.”

“Marcy, where are we gonna sleep! We have nowhere to go!”

“…oh.”

“We could stay here.” Anne said.

“Huh?”

“No, no, think about it! If you listen closely, you can hear water running, right? That must mean there’s a stream nearby, which is drinkable water.”

“Not actually true, but go on.” Marcy said.

“The thick growth here also means that we’ll be able to hear anything coming, and get away long before they break into the clearing and eat us.”

“Anne…”

“No, no, listen…”

“We also don’t know how long we’ll be here. We need to establish a safe place we can come back too, and why not do it here?”

“Anne, I…” Sasha started, before sighing, “I’d prefer a cave or something.”

“Do you see any caves nearby?” Marcy pointed out.

“Alright, fine. Just for tonight though.” Sasha said, sitting on a nearby log to rest her legs. “Anne, build us a campfire.”

“What? Why do I have to do it? I don’t even know how to start a fire.”

“Because I found this place and just dragged the two of you through a mile of mud and marshland.”

“Why can’t Marcy do it?”

“Good point. Marcy, help Anne build a campfire.”

“Aw man.” Marcy said sadly, sitting up from her own log. “Should have kept your mouth shut.”

“…sorry.”

Marcy just waved her hand dismissively again. “Hey, don’t worry about it. It’ll be fun. Now come on, we gotta find some lichen.”

“Some what?”

Struggling to get through the veritable wall of greenery, the two girls walked for a couple of minutes before Marcy threw a knowing look over at Anne.

“Be real, Anne, which show did you steal this whole ‘camp’ idea from? Because, I mean, you and camping?” Marcy asked.

“Suspicion Island, but don’t tell Sasha!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Marcy said with a wink.

“Wait, what was that about me and camping?” Anne added.

“Well, I mean, you’re not really the ‘camping’ type. You’re more of a ‘stay at home in your nice, comfy bed’ type.”

“What? I can camp. I love to camp.”

Marcy just stared at Anne smugly. “…okay.”

It wasn’t long before a simple fire was constructed, and just in time too, as darkness fell across the strange world the girls had found themselves in. The gentle flicker of light cast longer shadows across the earth, but they were far more comforting than the fleeting ones they replaced, their permanence being their virtue.

The mud squished gently as Anne rolled a log of her own towards the fire, settling it just a few feet away, where she found its warmth comfortable. The pop and sizzle of the fire dominated the grove, as each of the girls simply sat quietly. The moment of peace finally giving them time to come to terms with the monumental task in front of them.

The fire made for an entertaining enough show; a temporary dance as the flames licked and vanished into the air above them, and Anne let it consume her attention.

For a moment, at least, until a low growl snapped her back to reality.

Grabbing her racket from the dirt, Anne stood up and spun around, scanning her surroundings for anything out of place. Every sense seemed enhanced as her body coiled like a compressed spring, ready to jump into action at a moment’s notice.

The growl happened again and Anne turned to its source.

Which was Sasha, looking at her sadly. A hand went to her stomach as it grumbled, and she let out a quiet chuckle. “I think we’re going hungry tonight.”

The mention of food spurned a sudden hunger in Anne’s own belly, a basic need that she had been suppressing since arrival, and created a new fear to add to the many she was already dealing with. Sitting back down, she leaned forward heavily and cradled her head in her arms, before snapping back up and taking a deep breath. “Yeah.”

“Neither of you’ve got anything, have you?” Sasha asked, a twinge of hope in her voice.

“Umm…” Anne said, swinging her bag into her lap and digging through it. “I have…four candy bars. But I was kinda hoping I could…keep those for me,” she said, pulling them out and presenting them to her friend.

“C’mon, don’t be selfish!”

Looking at her friend, Anne quickly broke away and handed her one of the bars. Sasha ripped it open hastily, and took a big bite before turning to Marcy.

“You too, girl. You need to eat as well.”

“Huh?” Marcy said, looking up from the book in her lap. For a brief moment, she looked around confused, before noticing Anne attempting to pass her a bar across the fire. “Oh, no thanks, I’m not hungry.”

“Are you s…”

“More for me then,” Sasha said, snatching it out of Anne’s grip.

Fighting down the indignation, Anne unwrapped one of her own bars and bit into it as Marcy returned to her work, furiously scribbling down on her book.

“What are you doing over there anyway, Marcy?” Anne asked, “You’ve been very quiet.”

Looking up, Marcy smiled, “Oh, I’m writing a book on all the things we’ve seen; so we can keep better track of them. Interesting fauna, dangerous monsters, important landmarks, that sort of thing. Think of it like…like an encyclopaedia. Or a video game manual.”

“Wow! Really? Am I in it? You’re so clever, Marcy, I can’t believe it!”

Marcy scoffed. “’Am I in it?’ Of course you’re in it! I put all three of us on the first page!” She said, holding up the book. True to her word, right there on the first page was an admittedly very detailed sketch of the three girls, alongside a short description of them and picture of them paperclipped to the side. Anne recognized that picture especially, since each of them had their own copy of it.

“Cool!” Anne said, inching around the fire. “Like an…an Amphipedia!”

“Haha, I love it!”

Leaning in, Anne read her own description: “Thai, kind, excitable, athletic, strong, self-centered? Dim?”

“What? Let me see that.” Sasha said, sliding over as well. “Bossy? I’m not bossy! Marcy, these are completely wrong! Change them, now!”

Shrinking into her ‘seat,’ Marcy stammered out an excuse, “I…I can’t just put only positive things there. You’re more rounded than that.”

Grabbing the book, Sasha pulled it closer to her, lifting Marcy to her feet when she refused to let go. “Let me fix it then, pass me the pen.”

“No, it needs to be accurate!”

“Then let go of it!”

“It’s my book!”

“Marcy, give me the book!”

“No!”

“Girls, please, don’t fight!” Anne said quietly.

“I’m not…bossy!”

A sudden shout echoed out through the grove as the mud slid out from under Sasha’s feet. Pulling Marcy down with her, Sasha grunted as she hit the floor, the sudden shock causing her to lose her grip on the Amphipedia. Which wouldn’t have been a problem, if Marcy hadn’t also slipped her grasp on the book.

For a brief second, the book soared through the air, just narrowly avoiding Marcy’s desperate lunge as it fell back to earth.

And landed, unfortunately, directly into the campfire.

“No!” Marcy shouted, struggling to get to her feet.

Anne spared half a second to look down at the distraught face of her friend and over towards the book sizzling in the fire; its back pages already curling and blackening from the temperature. Without thinking, Anne thrust her hands directly into the fire and seized the book.

In the split second she had to make a decision, this made sense. Her friend needed help, Anne was the only one who could provide it, hence, grab the book and pull it out. It was the split second after that, when the fire burned into her hands, that she realized it might not have been the smart one.

Her scream was sudden, but short, as she threw the book as hard as she could out of the fire. When she pulled her hands out of the flame’s reach, she was expecting the pain to stop. Only it didn’t. She let out another pained gasp, before crushing her hands in her elbows, hoping the pressure would alleviate some of the hurting.

“Anne! What the hell!” Sasha said, rushing over to her. She was strong, and forcefully pulled Anne’s hands out into the open, eliciting a small gasp.

Shaking them in the wind, Anne simply smiled. “It’s…it’s fine. Barely hurts at all. At least I got the Amphipedia, right?”

Marcy and Sasha flashed each other, before shaking their heads.

“Forget the stupid book, are you okay?” Marcy said.

“I can’t believe you, Anne, why would you do something that stupid?”

“It…it was important to Marcy.”

They glanced at each other again, but this time, they shared a note of shame.

“Listen, Sash, I’ll…I’ll change the descriptions, okay?”

“No, you can keep them. What are we even doing, why are we fighting over a stupid book?” Sasha said, grabbing Anne by the wrist and leading her over to one of the logs. “C’mon, take a seat, keep your hands up, okay?”

“Thanks.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Anne watched her friend pick up the discarded archive, and place it down haphazardly on their seat.

“Hey, don’t…don’t worry about fighting, alright, Sasha? We’re all just a little stressed out right now, it’s natural. We’re still friends.”

“Here.” Marcy said, tearing the sleeve of her shirt off so that she had a semi-usable rag. It laid limb in her hand as she flipped it over her shoulder, and reached over to do the same to Sasha.

“Hey!” Sasha protested, before a quick glance over at Anne made her sigh and she extended her arm out towards Marcy. Grabbing it gently, she tore the sleeve on that shirt as well, generating another usable rag, albeit a different colour from the original.

Slowly, and carefully, she grabbed Anne’s arm and pulled it forward. In a single deft movement, she looped the torn fabric around her friend’s hand, tying it just a little too tightly, if Anne’s sudden gasp was any indication. Without much fanfare, she did the same to the other.

Anne stared at her bandaged hands for a moment, before Marcy and Sasha smiled warmly. “We’re all in this together, right?”

Tears started to gather in Anne’s eyes, while Sasha looked away. “Oh, don’t start crying. If you cry, then I’m going to cry,” Sasha said.

Anne failed to hold back the water in her eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“Don’t wanna cut you off, Anne, but Marcy is on fire again.”

“Wha?”

Twisting around, Marcy scanned down her back, eventually revealing that, yes, the bottom of her dress had caught on fire. She stared at it dumbly for a moment, before springing into action, running in circles while beating her clothing hastily. A shocked scream bumped out of her lips.

“Marcy!” Anne shouted standing up as well and chasing her around; eventually tripping her legs and letting her fall, butt first, into the mud, where the fire sputtered out.

“…thanks, Anne.”

Pulling her back up, Anne just smiled, and then winced as Marcy grabbed her hands.

Sitting back down, Sasha stared at the two of them, concerned, before leaning back and releasing the tension she was holding in her shoulders.

The next hour passed quietly. Marcy inspected the damage to her book; tossing the pages that were beyond salvaging into the fire. Sasha flipped through her phone idly, eventually settling on an episode of something or other that she enjoyed. And Anne just sat there, staring into the fire while flexing her fingers occasionally, silently suffering as pain shot through her body.

“Well…” Anne said, standing up suddenly. “It’s getting really late. I think I’ll head to bed. What about you?”

Standing up next to her, Sasha nodded, “Sure. Not like I have anything else to do.”

“What about you?”

Marcy looked up from her book, before smiling awkwardly. “Oh no, I still need to make some proper sketches for that monster we fought. Would you describe its face as ‘long but taut’ or more ‘wide but stretched thin?’”

“The first one.”

Without another word, Marcy shot her a thumbs up.

Looking around, Sasha grimaced slightly at the endless expanse of slick mud and pointy rocks that covered the ground of their makeshift camp. Occasionally, she could see small insects crawl and worm their way through it, and that’s not even mentioning the smell.

“Hehe, I guess none of us really considered how we were gonna pack it in for the night. I don’t suppose you have a sleeping bag in your pack, right, Anne?”

“No, but…” Getting down on her knees, Anne prodded at the ground a little, before spinning around and falling into it with a ‘squish.’ “The mud is soft enough for me.”

“Really?”

“Come on, don’t be picky.” Anne replied, tapping the ground next to her temptingly. A bug crawled past her face, and Anne shot back upright, before lying back down tentatively. “Okay, maybe it’s a little gross. But I mean, what can you do?”

Sasha peeked over at the jungle; considering maybe to climb up into a tree? Or settle in a nice bush? But honestly, both of those sounded more uncomfortable than just swallowing her pride and settling in next to Anne.

“Just kinda wish I had a pillow though.” Anne commented while pulling a leaf out of her hair, giving Sasha an idea.

“Luckily, I do!”

Catching Anne by surprise, Sasha flopped down on the ground next to her horizontally, her head resting on Anne’s stomach. The slow, rhythmic breathing of her friend was strangely calming, but Sasha was happier that it kept her head out of the muck.

“Oh, uh…I guess that’s alright.” Anne said.

“Obviously. There’s no point in both of us getting dirty.”

“True. Good point.”

Leaning back, Anne let the mud work its way into her hair as she stared up at an unfamiliar night sky. All night, she had been struggling with the thoughts in her head; an endless barrage of questions that she had no way of answering but whose mystery brought her nothing but dread and worry. Was it even possible to get back home? What if she had broken the Music Box? Was Domino doing alright? God, she hadn’t even thought about her parents, they were expecting her to come home hours ago! What if the police had been called, what could they even find?

Before she could be left alone with her thoughts for too long though, the mud squelched around her head as Marcy walked over, and wormed her way down. “Lift your head up, you silly goose,” she said, sliding underneath Anne so that her head was equally supported.

“I thought you said that you were gonna stay up a bit longer.”

“Oh, come on, I can’t leave my favourite friend to get all muddy on the ground alone.”

Redirecting her attention, Marcy gave Sasha a light tap, “Come on, move a bit closer over here.”

Begrudgingly, she did and Marcy rested her own head. From above, they formed a neat triangle, each supporting the other as they prepared to drift into the calming nexus of sleep. Silently, they sat there for a moment, before Marcy cracked a smile at the uncaring sky.

“So what do you think of this? The Triangle of Friendship. It’s like…like the Triforce! Remember the Triforce?”

“Nice reference.” Anne remarked.

“Thanks.”

Sasha groaned, “Marcy, I’m not in the mood to talk about video games with you.”

“I’m…well, obviously I’m wisdom. And Sasha is clearly courage. Which means you’re power, Anne.”

“What, why does Sasha get to be courage? I wanna be courage.”

“Because she’s the one keeping us, and everything else, together, clearly.”

“Haha, yeah. God forbid anything happen to me.” Sasha said drowsily.

There was another moment of silence. Anne swallowed nervously as Sasha shifted her head awkwardly.

“Okay, that was a little dark. Don’t worry, girls, we’re going to be fine.”

“I hope so.”

“I know so.”

Settling in, Marcy and Sasha closed their eyes; focusing on the simple sounds of the wilds around them. The crackling fire, the rushing stream. Familiar, universal noises that would remind them of home. Anne however, kept her eyes open, staring up at the sky.

“Hey, girls?” She asked nervously.

Sasha just let out an annoyed groan.

“Can I say something real quick, before we drift off?”

“Sure, Anne.”

“I just wanted to say…even if we are trapped in some freako alien world without a proper way home and quite possibly fighting for our lives in an uninhabited wasteland, I…I’m glad I’m doing it with the two of you.”

“Hey, we’re just glad that you’re here with us too, Anne. Right, Sasha?”

“Sure. Can you imagine if, say, Maggie had come with us instead? Or if we’d been separated somehow?”

Marcy let out a giggle, “Oh boy, that would have been terrible. See, Anne? It’s not just you.”

“…thanks, girls. That means a lot to me.”

“What are friends for?” Sasha asked. “Now will you two please shut up?”

“Right, sorry.”

There was no more discussion that night. Sasha drifted off to sleep fairly quickly, her soft breathing synchronizing with the rhythm beneath her head. Marcy was next, her slight snoring vibrating into Anne’s head through her chest, but was otherwise nearly unnoticeable. And then there was Anne, who stayed awake far longer than she’d like to admit, gazing upwards into the void.

She wasn’t sure what kind of dangers they’d face. Or how long they’d be forced to stay in a place like this. And deep down, that filled her stomach with lead and made her heartbeat quicken if she thought about it for too long.

But she found some small comfort in the fact that, no matter what it was, no matter how big, she’d always have her friends to support her.

And that was a comforting thought to drift away to.


	2. A Walk In the Spark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amphibia is full of wonderful creatures and Marcy plans to see them all! No matter how impatient Anne might be.

A loud snap woke Anne up. That, and her pillow suddenly standing up and slapping the back of her head into the mud.

“Battle formation!” Someone shouted, pulling Anne’s arm and forcing her to her feet. Anne lazily grabbed her racket and held it in front of her. Opening her eyes, a bright light shot a ray of pain into her head, so she quickly closed them again. A pair of hands shoved her around awkwardly as she yawned.

“You’re in front, Anne, come on!”

“Huh? Oh, okay?”

Slowly, she peeked her eyes open, staring ahead as something rustled in the undergrowth in front of her. For a second, she was confused, before it all came rushing back to her in a surge of awareness. A quick turn behind her saw her friends, similarly tired but ready for a fight, huddled behind her.

“Focus!” Sasha said, prompting her to spin back around and prepare herself.

As a small aphid leapt out of the woods, barely up to Anne’s knee, and skittered around the camp before burrowing into the mud and disappearing.

“Oh.” Marcy said, before collapsing backwards onto one of the ‘seats’ and letting out her pent-up breath. Sasha sat down next to her a moment later, sighing.

Anne just remained standing, staring outwards. Her hands shook as she held the tennis racket in front of her, before quickly letting them drop.

“You alright, Anne?” Sasha asked.

“No…I’m…I’m not.” Anne said, turning around, “I was kinda hoping this whole thing was just a bad dream and I was going to wake up back in bed, thirteen years old and ready for a new day at school.”

Both of her friends broke eye contact, and that was all that needed to be said.

Walking over, Anne sat down beside Marcy. They sat silently for a minute, fighting to keep their balance while their bodies woke up.

“The fire went out.” Anne commented.

“Don’t worry, as long as we have the ashes, we can just start a new one.”

“That’s really clever, Marcy, I’d never have thought of that.”

“No problem.”

Anne took a deep breath. “So what do we do now? Since we’re…still here.”

“Well, I don’t know about the two of you,” Sasha said, rising to her feet and stretching backwards, “but I’m going to track down that stream we can hear and clean all this mud off my back.”

Watching her leave, it didn’t take long for Marcy and Anne to chase after her; similarly inconvenienced by their dirty apparel. Luckily, it didn’t take long for them to catch up, or for them to find the source of the noise. It was a simple river, barely a few feet deep, but strangely clear, and not at all foul smelling. The girls wasted no time in fouling it themselves with long streaks of brown mud.

Along the banks of the river rose several giant Hostas plants, their sleek, smooth leaves shining in the morning sun but casting an equal amount of shade along the flowing water. Joining them were clusters of Cattails, clearly waiting for the right season to spread their seeds. Occasionally, a lily pad would drift by, but none of the girls paid them any mind on their journey.

Dipping her shirt in the water while sitting crosslegged at the edge, Anne watched as Marcy took a sip of the water, and then leaned too far forward by accident, slipping face first into the rushing stream. Grabbing her swiftly, Anne pulled her back upright. Marcy simply smiled and gave a quick ‘thank you.’

“How are your hands, Anne?”

“Huh?” Anne replied, holding them up. To be honest, they had settled into a dull ache that she could ignore so long as she didn’t focus or think about it too much. Tentatively, she dipped them in the coolness, letting it soak into the cloth wrapped around them. “They’re fine, really.”

“That’s nice to hear. If anything changes, you just tell me, okay? I feel…responsible, I guess, does that make sense? It doesn’t, does it?”

Emerging from the water, Sasha let out a shout before Anne could give a response that, no, it made complete sense, since it was her fault, partially. “Alright, girls, fun times over, we gotta talk.”

“What about?”

Sasha’s face dropped. “What about? What about! How about what we’re going to do now that we’re apparently trapped in Jumunji!”

“Nice reference.”

“Thanks.” Sasha said, “seriously, we need to figure something out here.”

“I’m all ears,” Anne replied, dipping her clothes back in the water.

“The way I see it, we have two immediate problems we need to deal with. The first is food.”

At the mention of food, both Anne and Marcy’s stomachs started to growl.

“The second, is that thing.” Sasha said, pointing over their heads and towards the horizon.

Following her finger, Anne leaned back and stared up at the sky, towards a collection of dark and angry clouds that were beginning to gather. They were far off, but would no doubt be upon them by the days end.

“Those clouds mean it’s going to rain, and that’s a problem if we’re still sleeping under the stars.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Luckily, I did. So listen, you two, here’s the plan.”

Shaking the water off, Sasha walked onto the bank and crouched down. “Anne, you go with Marcy into the woods and try to find either a) something edible, or b) a cave we can all move into while we figure this world out.”

Anne opened her mouth, but Sasha silenced her with a single finger, “I’ll stay at the camp, and do what I can to waterproof it in case we have nowhere else to go. When you’re done, come back to the camp, and we’ll talk about what to do next, okay?”

“Alright, I’m cool with that.” Marcy said, piping up from behind Anne.

Once the finger was removed from her lips though, Anne exploded, her arms waving wildly. “What? No! You can’t split us up, what happened to ‘in this together?’ We’re a team.”

“We can get more done if we split up. It’s not like we’re abandoning one another, it’s just a little…delegation. I don’t know why you’re complaining, you’re not the one who’s going to be left alone, Anne!”

Pausing for a moment, Anne moved on, “Well, why do you get to stay at the camp then?”

Placing a hand on her chest, Sasha scoffed, “Oh, forgive me for giving you two the easy job. I’m not going to be sitting around watching things on my phone, I have work to do.”

“Okay, fair, but…waterproofing? How?”

“I’ll figure something out, don’t worry. I promise.” Smiling warmly, Sasha simply reaffirmed what they wanted to know, “We’re going to be fine, you two. I’m counting on you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Preparations for their journey were swift, but that was more because of lack of supplies than anything else. Anne emptied some of the heavier things out of her bag, like books, or a bike pump, while Marcy simply tucked the Amphipedia into her little side bag.

“Alright, let’s go!” Marcy shouted, pumping her fist into the air.

Sasha gave them a nervous wave as they pushed aside the curtain of vines and branches that kept their little grove hidden. Anne replied in kind, and then they were back in the jungle; facing the unknown.

After walking in silence for a while, Anne finally summoned the courage to talk; convincing herself that any monster waiting to eat them would have revealed itself by now. “So…uh, any idea what we’re looking for?”

“I dunno.” Marcy replied, “To be honest, I’ve been kind of considering that, since we’re in a different world, everything we find might be inedible to begin with. It might just be completely incompatible with our biology, and kill us within seconds. Or the opposite might happen, where no matter how much we eat, we never feel full because there’s no nutrients our bodies can process.”

“Oh.” Anne replied. This was something that had never even crossed her mind.

“Plus, we have no frame of reference for what’s poisonous anyway. But it might be safe to assume that the same warning signs that apply on Earth apply here.”

“What are the usual signs?” Anne asked, wandering forward idly.

Marcy gave no response.

“I mean, obviously if something is covered in thorns, we shouldn’t eat it, right? Or brightly coloured, I remember that. But what about, I dunno, white mushrooms? Are those fine?”

Anne slapped her forehead.

“Oh, what am I saying, we should be looking for fruit, right? What kind of fruit grows in a swamp, do you know?”

Looking over at her friend, Anne felt a spike of ice shoot through her heart when she realized that she’d completely disappeared. A tsunami of terrible fantasies rushed through her mind, as she spun around, confused.

”Marcy?”

Something couldn’t have just swooped down and grabbed her, right? She would have noticed.

Would she have noticed? Oh god, she wasn’t sure anymore. What if it was really fast? She’d read an article online once about trapdoor spiders that could leap out of the earth faster than the eye could see, what if one of them had grabbed her friend?

It was hard to breathe for some reason, hard to focus. What…what should she do? What could she do?

Her weapon was in her hands as she spun around frantically. Shouting into the forest, Anne held her breath as she waited for a response.

“Anne? Anne, you gotta come see this!”

The cry of her friend served to settle Anne’s stomach a little. “Where are you?”

“Just follow my voice, come on!”

Quietly, Anne backtracked, listening intently for Marcy as she waded through the dense quagmire. Eventually, she found her, and the sight of her friend buried the fears that had sprung into her head but a moment ago.

Walking up behind her, Anne peeked over her shoulder as Marcy scribbled in the Amphibedia, deep in her work. Pen flying across paper, Marcy was lost in a world of her own as Anne looked on.

Occasionally, she would poke her nose out from in the book to glance at the creature in front of her. This insect resembled a centipede, but was obviously much larger in size, as was typical; Anne was coming to realize. Its golden yellow carapace blended in well with the sickly green grass beneath it; an effect that was only enhanced by its off yellow stomach. Atop its head were two large horns, brown, but growing lighter as you got closer to the tip.

So far, the insect was content to laze around in front of the girls, without a care in the world.

Looking up, Marcy smiled, “Yo, Anne, touch it.”

“Oh, uh…okay.” Anne said, reaching forward.

Before her hand could touch the centipede though, an arc of lightning leapt through the air, disappearing into Anne’s body. She recoiled as she felt it travel through her, burning and jerking, before racing down her leg and disappearing into the dirt. Falling backwards, Anne hit the ground with a thud, landing ass first in the mud.

“Yeah, it did that to me the first time as well.”

“What the heck!” Anne shouted.

Marcy was already face deep in her book, “Can you believe this? Bio-electrical generation on a level unseen by anything back on Earth. And at will! It can’t be diet based, can it, what could it possibly be eating? Perhaps its increased capacity is due to its ability to live on land. I wonder how it doesn’t hurt itself; I simply must have another touch.”

Anne slapped Marcy’s hand away as it slowly crept towards the creature, which brought her back to reality.

“Anne, we have to name this thing!”

Staring down at the creature, Anne watched it lazily stare back at her; its pupils reminding her of double A batteries.

“How about…’Electric Centipede?’

There was a brief pause, “Technical, and to the point. I love it!” Marcy said, hastily scribbling in her book again.

“Great, so can we eat it?”

“What?”

“Can we eat it?”

“…I mean, it just electrocuted you.”

“It’s fine, I can smash it with a rock!” Anne said, reaching down and grabbing a particularly large one.

Standing up hastily, so quickly that the Amphipedia fell onto the ground, Marcy grabbed at Anne’s shirt.

“Wait, wait, it’s highly likely that this kind of reaction will persist after death, and more importantly, cause a high level of combustion in the subject come expiry!”

Anne thought about this for too long. “Wait, you’re saying this thing is gonna explode!”

“I said it’s likely.”

Slowly, Anne put the rock back down.

“So we can’t eat it?”

“Well, no…”

“Then pack it in, Marcy!” Anne said, smiling and swinging her arm in front of her, “We got work to do! Sasha is counting on us!”

Spinning on her heels, Anne pointed in a random direction. Surely, this was the most efficient way to search the jungle from top to bottom. Taking a few steps forward, Anne peered behind herself as she waited for Marcy to follow.

Only she didn’t.

She was still hastily writing in the Amphipedia. Squatting down on her knees to get closer to the Electric Centipede, Marcy tentatively poked at it with a long stick; recording its reactions as it fired small zaps of electricity into the ground around it.

Anne walked back over to her friend. “I said, we got work to do!”

“Huh?” Marcy said, looking up at Anne before stretching back to her full height, “Oh…right. Yeah.”

Closing the book, Marcy trundled away from the insect, her dragging feet leaving indentions in the mud. She shot a look back at the Electric Centipede, before continuing on her way.

Sighing, Anne lowered her head. “Do you want to stay a little longer, Marcy?”

Marcy couldn’t maintain eye contact. “…yeah.”

“Alright, fine. But as soon as you’re done, we need to get moving. We’ll be making up for lost time.”

The subsequent hug from Marcy caught Anne off guard, but was over before she could really come to terms with it. Slipping past her, Marcy flipped her book back to the page she’d just closed. “Don’t worry, I’ll be quick!”

Sighing again, Anne watched as Marcy started to pull her shirt off; clearly intending to use it as a kind of trap to pick the Centipede up. Leaning against a nearby tree, Anne scanned through the forest for any signs of sudden or impending danger, before letting her guard down.

An hour or two spent on making Marcy feel better wouldn’t hurt anyone, right? Sure, Sasha might not approve, but she wasn’t here right now and everything would be fine if they just didn’t tell her. Staring up at the sun slowly moving across the sky, Anne tried to ignore how her stomach rumbled, quickly settling on her phone to pass the time.

Zoning out, there was practically no time at all before Marcy tapped Anne on the shoulder, shocking her awake and causing her to fumble her phone awkwardly back into her pocket.

Smiling, Anne pulled herself forward and back to her feet. “Done?”

“I have…enough, for now. Come on; let’s go find us some food.”

“Great!” Anne said, genuinely excited. “It only took you…” She glanced at her phone, “An hour and a half.”

Taking initiative, Marcy led Anne forward through the jungle; their plans once again back on track. “Oh, but look at all I figured out. If you grab the back section of the Centipede, it can’t shock you, because that’s where the charge starts before travelling up the body. I just wish I could figure out how the charge is generated in the first place.”

“That’s really…that’s something.”

“It can’t be a singular organ, that makes no sense, so it must be something in the creature’s skin? Perhaps it requires the length of the creature’s body to attain a proper charge.”

“Ah huh.”

Anne simply nodded dumbly as Marcy prattled on and on about the specifics of Electric Centipedes. Anne liked her friend, but it was at times like these that she admitted she could be rather annoying. It was like her brain was just too small for the all the knowledge she wanted, so she let it out on whoever was nearby and let them hold onto it for a while. Usually, it was the plot of whatever fantasy series she was interested in.

Pausing for a moment, Anne held her breath as she heard an odd sound reverberate through the jungle. Sneaking forward, she followed it for a few feet, before poking her head out from behind a nearby tree.

A large, snake like bug was wrapped around another tree a handful of feet away. Its long body was lined with strange bulges that slowly slide down its length as the creature buried its head into a pile of growths near the top of the tree.

“Those look like…mangos.” Anne commented, before the realization sparked a fire inside her.

The snake-bug ate greedily, letting juice run down its face as Anne watched. This was fantastic! If those were mangos, then all they had to do was chase off that bug and harvest them for themselves! There was enough there to last for days. And that creature didn’t look too dangerous anyway, between the two of them, it should be easy work.

Turning around, Anne motioned for Marcy to come closer.

Only to realize she wasn’t there again.

Anne froze, before her rational side kicked into gear. She’d just done this an hour ago, she’d just wandered off again. Nothing was wrong, she just needed to find her and get her to focus.

Glancing back at the snake, Anne pursed her lips as she was forced to sneak away. Every moment it stayed there was another moment that it was free to eat their fruit. But she had no chance to chase it off alone.

Doubling back, Anne found Marcy’s footprints and hastily followed them to a small stream; where Marcy was once again crouched down on her heels, looking at a bug resting on a nearby stump.

This one looked like a large ant, but instead of two large pincers at the front of its mouth, it instead had a single long tube that ended in a tongue that occasionally flicked out of its mouth, tasting the air around it.

Creeping up behind her, Anne started to whisper.

“Marcy. Marcy, we gotta get moving, now. I think I found us some food, but it’s getting all eaten. We need to hurry.”

“Wha? Oh, Anne! Listen, you gotta watch this, it’s incredible!” Marcy replied, speaking normally.

“Shh! You gotta be quiet. Come on, we don’t have long.”

“Right, right. But first, seriously, look at this.” Marcy said.

Sighing, Anne leaned over Marcy, looking down at the same insect. “Alright, do it, but hurry up!”

Reaching into her pocket, Marcy pulled out a small earthworm and placed it on a leaf about ten feet away from the insect. Before Anne could ask where she got it, or why she had it at all, Marcy took a step back, and waited for the ant to notice.

In the blink of an eye, a flash of white shot across Anne’s vision, and then the earthworm was gone. And yet, despite its speed, Marcy’s hand was faster, shooting out to catch whatever had attacked the worm and letting it wrap around her fingers instead.

Following the line, Anne noticed that the ant had fired a glowing white string out of its mouth, and ensnared both the bug and her friend.

“Isn’t this so cool? This string has a tensile strength several dozen times stronger than that of a spider back home. It’s nearly unbreakable. And the Nephilant fired it out so quickly. And…and the range! Ten feet is just the usual, but I think, if needed, they could reach twenty, or even thirty!”

“Nephilant?”

“Nephila is the Latin name for a species of spider back home renowned for its impressive webbing. Since this is an ant though, I called it a ‘Nephilant.’”

“Cool,” Anne said, bouncing on her feet, “But we really need to go. I know you’re having fun and all, but we really do need to find something to eat.”

“Y…yeah.” Marcy muttered, looking downcast.

Turning to leave, Anne felt something grab her shoulder. Turning back, Marcy looked her in the eyes. “Can’t…can’t we just stay a little longer? This thing keeps creeping towards its den, I don’t think it’ll be here when we come back. Just ten minutes, that’s all I need.”

Anne grit her teeth and rocked her head side to side. “We really need to stop that snake…”

“Please?”

“Argh…fine. Fine.” Anne said, relenting. Marcy always knew the best arguments to convince her of anything. “But only ten minutes. God, I’m starting to sound like my mom.”

“Only ten, got it!”

Leaning against a tree, Anne shuffled uncomfortably. It was only a little break. How much fruit could one snake even eat? There would still be plenty left when they came back, surely. And…and if it made Marcy happy…

Standing watch, Anne once again rested as Marcy sat down and recorded more information into her book. Several minutes passed in silence, until Anne got tired of fighting down the worry in her stomach and walked forward.

“So…uh…find anything interesting?”

“Not really, no. If I could just figure out a way to cut the fibre, we could maybe use the string as…well, string. Or even rope, it has the strength for it. The ant must be able to do it somehow, but it won’t tell me.”

“This is that important, huh?”

“We need to understand this new world. It’s fascinating, and amazing, but dangerous. If we don’t know what it has in store for us, we’re…we’re not gonna be making it home. It’s not enough to just survive, we have to tame it. There are things that can help us do that, but we have to find them. Understand them.”

Petting the ant, Marcy smiled, “Luckily, I’m good at cataloguing. Leave it all to me.”

“Sure. I just…” Anne started, before turning away, “wish you’d kinda focus on what’s important right now.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing! Just…just saying that it’s nearly been ten minutes.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yep. Time to go.” Anne said, tapping her feet against the ground.

Biting her lip, Marcy glared down at her ant friend. Shuffling awkwardly, she looked back to Anne. “I…I don’t suppose you could do it alone?” She asked, a twinge of hopefulness in her voice.

“Nope. That thing looked nasty; I’m going to need all the help I can.”

Groaning for a solid ten seconds, Marcy leaned forward and gave the ant a couple of helpful pushes. “Alright, alright. Go on, little buddy. Get out of here.”

Squawking quietly, the Nephilant scurried down the rock it was resting on, and glided across the mud until it reached a deep hole. With little fanfare, it crawled inside, disappearing into the darkness for good.

Grabbing her spear and holstering the Amphipedia, Marcy turned around. “Alright, let’s go fight a…what was it, a snake thing?”

“A snake bug thing, yeah.”

“Sweet. Can’t wait to record whatever that is!” Marcy said, pushing past Anne and heading back to the ‘trail’ they were following.

Anne just stood there, staring for a moment. No, no, it was fine if she studied the snake. She could gather fruit, and Marcy could just…do her own thing.

And not contribute at all. Again.

Taking a deep breath, Anne chased after her friend.

Catching up with her quickly, Anne motioned for Marcy to follow, raising a finger to her lips to signify that she should be quiet for that point on. Marcy nodded in understanding and tightened her grip. Quietly, the two of them stalked through the jungle, until Anne returned to the fruit tree and the snake.

Back against the tree, Anne watched Marcy take position, and raised her hand, three fingers extended. Surprise would be essential here. She started to count down.

On reaching zero, Anne and Marcy burst out of the bushes; a primal shout leaving their lips as they lunged forward.

And found nothing but an empty tree surrounded by mango cores.

“Huh.” Marcy said, lowering her weapon.

“Huh?” Anne replied.

Creeping forward, but keeping her eyes open and her body ready, Anne approached the tree. Her body shivered as she expected an attack from the snake-bug at any time, but nothing happened. Looking up, she could see that all the fruit was gone; picked away and consumed by the creature that was gorging itself just a moment ago.

The fruit around her feet smelled sickly sweet and while looking at it, Anne felt her eye twitch. There was barely enough left to feed one person, even if they gathered them all up.

“I guess the snake must have eaten it all while we were studying the Nephilant.” Marcy said, crouching down and poking one of the mangos with a stick. Tentatively, she grabbed one and brought it up to her face. For a moment, it looked as though she didn’t have the nerves to eat it, before suddenly leaning forward and nibbling on the little flesh that remained.

“Yeah, mangos. You were right, Anne. Oh, this is so cool, hold this, I gotta write this down.”

Anne was snapped out of her trance as the mostly eaten fruit was shoved into her hand. Marcy seemed oblivious to the problem, and to her shame, Anne felt a hint of anger grow in her.

“Marcy! All the food’s gone! What are we gonna do? Sasha is gonna kill us when we tell her about this, oh god, we just let that stupid bug eat everything!”

“Relax, Anne. It’s not like this was our only chance.” Marcy said, not bothering to look up, “If there was one, there will be others. There’s plenty of trees to pick, we just gotta spend a little longer to find them. And more time spent out here in the wilds is better, if I can say.”

Absentmindedly pointing behind Anne, Marcy continued, “Besides, I figure we just follow the snake. If it’s still hungry, it’ll lead us straight to more mangos.”

“Wha?” Anne asked, turning around. True to her word, there was a large rut of mud leading deeper in the forest, clearly having been made by the creature that pilfered all their fruit.

“Oh.”

Taking a deep breath, Anne calmed down, just a little. Marcy was right. This wasn’t their only chance, they would have plenty more chances to get more food. This was a minor setback at worst. Everything was still fine, everything was still going to plan. And when they found the snake again…

Marcy would let it go to investigate an interesting rock formation or something…

Anne shook her head to chase the thought away. Walking towards the path of the beast, Anne motioned for Marcy to follow. “Marcy…”

“Yes, Anne?”

“I don’t think we really need an entry for what a mango is.”

“…oh. Right. You’re right.”

Closing her book, Marcy hurried over to the trail, and together, they set off again.

The snake-bug, or ‘Rattleworm’ as Marcy had started to call it (and recorded in the Amphipedia, making it the official name that all the girls were now required to call it,) wasn’t hard to follow. Like most dumb animals, the thought of being followed at all was something that its primitive brain couldn’t understand. What made it difficult were the repeated stops that Marcy insisted they take so that she could probe deeper into the natural world around them.

Looking up at the sky, Anne could physically feel the time pass them by. First it was thirty minutes for a species of mushrooms. Then an hour for a kind of small rodent. Ten minutes for a small grub, and then another half an hour waiting for its venom to leave Marcy’s system so she could move again. Then a rock formation.

Again and again, they stopped, every new thing causing Anne to dread about the impending boredom and waste of time it would inevitably cause. A deep feeling was growing in Anne’s gut, and she wasn’t sure she liked it.

Her eye twitched again as Marcy called out. “Oh hey, look at that thing! Anne, take a left up ahead; we need to see this.”

Grinding her teeth, Anne breathed heavily. “Sure. Sure thing…friend.”

Lagging behind as Marcy rushed ahead, Anne stared longingly at the path in front of her, before following after her.

Breaking through the tree line, Anne was greeted by a wide lake, stretching as far as the eye could see; just in time to grab Marcy’s shirt to prevent her from accidently walking into the water blindly.

Looking around, at the wide variety of new life and unexplored vistas, Marcy smiled widely and put her hands on her hip. “Just look at this, Anne! Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? God, I could just stay here for hours; I gotta write this down in my map. Got a name for me, good buddy?”

“H…hours?”

“Owwers Lake? Sure, we could use something new.” Marcy commented, writing the name down quickly before Anne could correct herself. A small dragonfly buzzed past her face, and Marcy looked up with glee before following it.

Throwing her hands up, Anne chased after her. “No! No! Marcy, we need to go, we can’t stick around here! I’ve been very kind to you, and you know that I like you very much, but we need to focus. We need…” Anne said, before snapping her fingers to regain Marcy’s attention, that had drifted away, “We need to get food, alright? Then you can research as much as you want.”

Marcy swallowed loudly. “But…but look at this place! We can afford to stay a little while.”

“Marcy, look at how low the sun is already. We can’t afford to keep making these detours.”

Marcy shot a flash at the sky above her, before looking down quickly. “Come on, just an hour?”

“No! No more, we need to go.”

“Half an hour?”

“No!”

“Ten minutes.”

Anne leaned back in mock agony. “Argh. F…fine. But I’m starting a stop watch on my phone, we leave immediately once it goes off, got it?”

The hug that caught Anne off-guard, admittedly, soothed the fire inside her just a little bit. Making her friends happy felt good. “Thanks, Anne! You’re the best! Sasha would never have let me write down this much.”

“You’re…you’re welcome.” Anne replied, still secretly angry over yet another delay.

The minutes couldn’t pass fast enough, but to Anne’s incredible relief, her phone quickly beeped, signifying that it was time to get back on track. Practically running over to Marcy, who was in the process of trying to catch a fish with her spear but failing terribly, Anne grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Okay, there’s the beep, time to go, let’s move.”

As the fish swiftly swam away from Marcy, she shrugged. “I did promise. Alright, back into it.”

Wading out of the water, the two of them quickly returned to the trail. The forest was oddly quiet as they walked forward, Anne practically pulling Marcy along to prevent her from looking at anything for more than a couple of seconds, just in case she saw something mildly interesting.

The silence was unbearable, and so, Anne eventually broke it. “Hey Marcy, can we talk for a moment? About…about all this?”

“Huh? Oh, gimme a minute.”

“No, it’s really important.”

“No, I mean, I think I hear something up ahead.” Marcy clarified, pointing deeper down the tracks into another grove similar to the one the girls had settled in. Opening her mouth to object, Anne quickly swallowed her pride as the noise of something slithering through the undergrowth grew louder the closer they came.

“I bet the Rattleworm’s just up ahead. You ready?” Marcy asked, as Anne nodded.

Bursting into the clearing, Anne and Marcy were just in time to see the tail end of the Rattleworm disappear into the undergrowth; the tell-tale tracks that they had been following left in its wake. More important to Anne though, was what else was in the grove.

Another mango tree, same as the first, once again picked clean in exactly the same fashion. Fruit cores, each one representing a meals worth of delicious plant flesh, lay discarded around the tree like so many golden, cracked eggs. Looking up, Anne could easily see that there was only a single edible fruit left; so far away from the trunk of the tree that she can only assume that the Rattleworm hadn’t seen it.

They’d missed their chance again.

By less than a minute.

Anne felt her eye twitch, only this time, when she raised her hand to rub it, it didn’t stop. Travelling naturally, her hand moved up until it was running through her hair.

Walking up behind her, Marcy let out a forced laugh. “Haha, I guess we were a little too slow, am I right?”

Taking out the Amphipedia, Marcy flipped it quickly to the map she was constructing, and began to doodle. “There’s always next time though.”

“N…next time?” Anne stuttered out.

Had…had the shadows always been that long? What about that smell of impending rainfall? Just how long had they been out here already, chasing after insects and getting nothing. Getting nothing because a certain someone couldn’t keep their head out of their book for ten minutes.

“Next time?” Anne shouted, startling her friend. Somehow, her other hand had found its way into her hair. “Marcy, we wouldn’t NEED a next time if you could just shut your stupid book and focus for a moment! It’s your fault that this keeps happening!”

Holding her book close to her chest, Marcy smiled awkwardly. “Haha, yeah. I…I guess it is, in a way. Sorry.”

Not stopping, Anne continued, “It was your fault we missed the first one as well! I told you that we don’t have time to waste, and you just…just keep letting yourself get distracted! We could be done by now! We could have our bags filled with fruit and the best you can is ‘sorry?’”

“H…hey, calm down. There’s probably a bunch more trees we can find…”

“That’s not the point, Marcy! Oh, I can’t wait to chase after that Rattleworm again so you can just let it slip away right under your nose because it’s buried in your dumb book!”

This time, Marcy let her smile drop. “Hey! I’m doing important stuff here; what I learn could really help us.”

“You know what else could really help us? Food! Not starving to death because you wanted to stare at pretty flowers all day. But noooo, little miss scholar just has to make it all about her. Do you even care about us, or is this all just some big adventure to you?”

Marcy gave Anne a little push, more to try and ‘wake her up’ from her anger. “Of course I care about you! It’s just…I…I mean…” Her words trailed off as she struggled to find the right ones to use.

Walking over to the one remaining mango, Anne plucked it with ease, “Just look at us. We’ve been searching for, what, eight hours now? And we have one piece of fruit. Here, you may as well take it, since you’re clearly soooo important.” Anne said, tossing it over to Marcy, who didn’t even bother to catch it.

“Hey, if you wanted to move on, you could have said something! If I’d known how much…”

“I did! Repeatedly! Because I knew how important this was! How much Sasha was counting on us, how much I was counting on you! But do you ever listen to me? No, of course not, you’re too busy doodling mushrooms in the Amphipedia to do any important work.”

Anne took a deep breath. “All I wanted, was for you to focus for half a second. And you couldn’t even do that.”

Back stepping onto the defensive, Marcy ironically stepped forward, “What I’m doing here is just as important. We can’t hope to just survive in this world. If we want to go home, we need to understand it. There are things here that can help us, we just need to find them.”

“You’re still going on about this! You still think you’re right!”

“I AM right!”

“Unbelievable! What good is all this if we starve?” Anne shouted, throwing her hands up.

The raw emotions were flowing out of Anne like a river now, and much like a river, poisonous and dangerous things caught the ride out of her lips, seeking more to hurt than to convince.

“I…I wish I’d never saved that stupid book!” Anne yelled.

Marcy gasped, “You don’t mean that!”

“No, I do! Maybe if I had let it burn, you’d have learnt how to focus by now! All you care about is your stupid pictures and dumb names for all the animals. Like, seriously…” Anne glanced down at the book, “’Electric Centipede? You couldn’t think of anything better?”

“You made that one!”

“Who cares? Me and Sasha haven’t eaten all day, and most of yesterday, and it’s looking more like we won’t eat at all, and you don’t even care. You just want to relax while the two of us do all the hard work.”

Shoving Marcy back, Anne turned to leave, “And you know what? I’m sick of it. Go back to the camp if you want to waste time, I have mouths to feed. Yours included.”

And with that, Anne stomped away, taking Marcy’s spear with her. It’s not like Marcy was going to need it.

Marcy watched her leave through the underbrush. The rational side of her, which was admittedly the side she listened to the most, told her to chase after Anne. The jungle was dangerous, and while Anne was the stronger of the two, it was still safer to travel together. Plus, she had no chance of succeeding without Marcy’s help, it’s why they were in this trouble to begin with.

But her emotional side was in control now. How dare Anne be so…so short sighted! There was still plenty of time to do what she wanted; Marcy estimated a good four hours. And already, the Amphipedia was full of helpful knowledge. Give her a week and they’d be living in relative luxury!

Plus she took her poking stick! She needed that for poking!

Screw Anne. If she wanted to avoid wasting time, she was going the wrong way about it now.

Turning around, Marcy retraced her steps, returning to Owwers Lake. Down a poking stick, she instead turned to a new page and looked around for something new to observe. She could do that now, now that Anne was out of her air. She had all the time she wanted!

And there were so many interesting things. Maybe she would swim out to one of those lily pads and see how much weight they could hold. Yeah, that was a good idea!

Wading through the water, while holding the Amphipedia above her head to keep it dry, Marcy pulled herself onto one of the giant leaves, amazed at its strength, and settled down cross legged. She would have to find some way of waterproofing her books if she was going to stay in this world, perhaps in the body of some kind of amphibian? But then again, despite all the insects and swampland, Marcy found it odd that she’d never seen a frog yet; not to mention, Anne probably needed her help right now.

Marcy paused, and shook the thought from her head.

Right, back to work. These lilypads were really amazing, how much weight could they support? She knew she was exactly 41.3kg, but what was the upper limit? Moving on and scanning the lake, Marcy honed in on something she found particularly interesting; a small fire fly that was darting over the surface of the water and sending steam wafting into the air around it. Settling in, she began her observation.

After the first minute though, her mind started to wander, uncharacteristically distracted.

“You don’t think I’m being unreasonable, do you, Mr Firefly?” Marcy asked.

There was, naturally, no reply.

“Of course I’m not. Right. Just because I enjoy doing this doesn’t mean it’s any less important.”

Marcy’s stomach rumbled and she was suddenly keenly aware that she hadn’t even had the candy offered to her last night. At times, it was easy for her to supress her need to eat, but other times…

“Okay, sure, fine, I could have helped her first, and then started researching, but…I mean…” Marcy said, waving her hand, “Just look at you! How could I resist? Aw, you’re so cute!”

The fly buzzed around idly, settling on a nearby flower and literally causing it to burst into flames.

“See? How does that even make sense? I have to know!” Marcy exclaimed, “Anne can wait, how can she not see how amazing this all is?”

She was quiet for a moment. “Unless…she can see, and that’s why she was okay with waiting so long. She just…thinks finding food is more important.”

Sighing, she leaned back, careful not to let the firefly land on her as well.

“Maybe…maybe it is.”

All this thought on food made Marcy’s stomach rumble and she swallowed nervously as a sense of wrong built in her mind.

“I’ve been real selfish, haven’t I?”

The first drops of rain started to land on the surface of the lake, sending ripples that echoed from edge to edge. The cold drops felt like pinpricks on her skin; feeling like they were piercing through her body with their intensity. In a way, their freezing touch was the wakeup call Marcy needed.

“I…I need to go find Anne!”

Standing up, still amazed at how sturdy the lily pad was, Marcy dived into the water and raced back to the shore. Rushing out the water, Marcy froze as a blood-curdling scream echoed through the jungle.

“Anne!” She shouted back, sprinting into the jungle as fast as her legs could carry her; following the panic yelling of her friend.

Trudging through the jungle, Anne was honest enough with herself to admit that she felt a little bit of fear. The memories of her first day here were still fresh in her mind, memories of having to run for her life from a monster that she had no chance of beating alone. They were a stark reminder of just how dangerous this world was and why she had to stay on guard almost constantly.

But what choice did she have? If Marcy wasn’t so easily distracted, they could have been done by now! And if she wasn’t so stubborn, she wouldn’t need to be doing this alone at all. No matter how Anne looked at it, this was all her fault.

Which made her feel a little bad, because Marcy was still her friend, and she was kind of hoping that they would stick together in tough times like this. It reminded her of that time Sasha found out that Marcy was being bullied by a boy at school, and had the three of them ambush him behind the bike racks, even if Anne was against it. Now that was a tough time, Anne got many bruises that night.

Anyway, where was she going with this? Looking further down the path, Anne clarified her thoughts.

Right, she was completely in the right, and Marcy was completely in the wrong.

Her train of thought was once again derailed as she reached the end of the line. Just in time as well, as droplets of rain started to fall; settling on her skin and mingling with the sweat that was already there. The rain brought with it the smell of fresh mud; and a kind of clarity that Anne always got in the moments before a storm.

She could smell the sickly sweet fruit not far from her; and it made her mouth water. And something else, a kind of meaty miasma that Anne couldn’t identify the source nor the location of. She hoped it wouldn’t be important.

Taking a deep breath, Anne poked her head through the leaves towards her prey.

There it was, wrapped around yet another fruit tree. And to her luck, it was sleeping! Anne guessed that all that food made it tired, which was perfect for her! She was going to kill it, take the fruit, and come back to camp a hero!

The rain started to pick up as Anne burst out of the jungle; a primal scream already exploding out of her lips in an effort to disorient her target. In confusion, the Rattleworm swung its head down from the confines of the tree, just in time to see Anne’s racket swing down at it.

The two collided with a solid ‘thunk’ and the Rattleworm went into pained convulsions. Anne delivered another wack, but the Rattleworm recovered quickly, focusing on her immediately. In kind, it released a shout of its own, and dashed forward; head-butting Anne in the chest and sending her sprawling backwards.

Scrambling backwards through the mud, Anne wiped the rainwater from her eyes and raised her racket up just in time to parry another lunge. When the Rattleworm reared upwards, baring its fangs, Anne was hit with the sudden realization that things might have gotten out of hand.

In a last ditch effort, she swung down again, giving the vile creature a nice bop on the head. Hissing again, the animal pulled up to attack, before stopping.

Anne just lay there, holding her breath, as the Rattleworm shook its head; spraying water over her. It looked around, before twisting back to the tree it was wrapped around and untangling itself. With a final angry look at Anne, it slithered away into the jungle, leaving its distinctive tracks behind it.

Standing up, Anne just stared forward in disbelief, expecting it to return at any moment. She…she did it! She defeated the Rattlesnake!

Jumping in place, Anne let out a squeal of delight. “Take that, Marcy! I don’t even need your help! Who’s the best! I am! Anne is! Booyah!”

Dancing in place, Anne let her victory soak into her more than the rain was, before letting loose the tension she was holding in her shoulders. Alright, all she had to do was now was gather up enough fruit for everyone and head home. And to think, she thought this was going to be hard.

If Anne had been paying more attention, she might have noticed the soggy ground shift underneath her feet or felt the vibrations shaking through the puddles on the earth. Maybe she would have heard the squelching of mud, or the jungle go silent around her. As it was though, she didn’t realize why the Rattleworm had run away until she turned around and saw the monster sneaking up behind her with her eyes.

To call it a worm was an insult. It was more like a pillar of red flesh, twice the size of a person, and covered in dozens of razor sharp, hooked spines that were lined horizontally over every one of its segments. As Anne watched, the spines started to spin rapidly, tearing the earth and leaves apart as the creature loomed over her, half of its mass still buried in the soft ground.

“Um...” Anne said quietly, before the thing screeched at her, the insides of its mouth just rotating teeth; hungry for flesh.

Anne let out a blood curling scream in response and tried to sprint past it.

Only to fall backwards as another worm burst out of the ground in front of her. And another, and another.

The adrenaline hit her system immediately as one lunged at her, and she wedged her racket in its mouth. The spinning blades pushed dangerously close to her chest as the monster pushed down at her; throwing its entire body weight into moving closer.

“Anne!” A familiar voice cried out.

“Marcy?” Anne shouted back.

Jumping into view, the look of terror on Marcy’s face was clear. Still, she faced the monsters with a bravery few could argue against.

“Get away from my friend, you freaks!” She shouted, driving her spear into the side of the nearest worm, having recovered it from the tree side that Anne had abandoned it on. A horrific crunching sound echoed through the woods as her weapon was ground down and splintered against the rapidly moving carapace. “Oh, that’s not good,” Marcy commented.

In response, the worm pulled more of its body out of the mud, and lay down horizontally, forming a deadly barricade, its quick moving spines preventing Marcy from even attempting to climb past. Mud splashed up into her face as well, blinding her. Her attempts at passage were only obstructed further when a second worm appeared behind the first; rising vertically out of the mud to make it clear how useless her efforts were.

“Get out of my way!” Marcy shouted again, grabbing a random tree branch and swinging at the worm, to the same effect. In the back of her mind, she was fascinated by how the worms were seemingly using pack tactics to separate her from her friend until it was too late; but shook that off to focus on more important things.

A few feet away, Anne was pushed down to her knees by the weight of the monster above her; which angled its deadly body closer. She scarcely had time to look over at Marcy, before redoubling her efforts just to survive.

And yet, looking over at her friend, everything seemed to slow down. Marcy’s desperate swings froze in the air, the rapid spinning of the worm’s bodies lessened to a reasonable rotation, even her heart seemed to beat slower.

And there was one thought on her mind.

I have to protect my friends.

“Marcy!” Anne shouted, as time resumed. “Listen! You need to get out of here!”

“Wh…what?”

“It’s not safe here, and once they have me, you’re next! You need to get back to the camp!”

“I…I’m not leaving you! They’ll…”

“I know! But if they get us both, Sasha’ll have to survive this place alone. And she…she needs your help. She needs your brains.” Anne said, as her arms twitched, a minor weakness that brought her to her back.

“She needs you too!”

“Marcy, get out of here! End. Of. Discussion!” Anne said; borrowing the often used words of her other friend.

Marcy couldn’t bear to look Anne in the eyes as she stepped backwards; giving the worm in front of her space.

To be honest, Anne felt a bang of regret, of anger, as she watched Marcy retreat through the woods. But this was probably natural. The result of some ember of hope deep in her soul that thought maybe, Marcy would find a way to save her, which was extinguished as she disappeared from sight.

Taking a deep breathe, Anne smiled, a wave of relief and joy overpowering her primitive sense of betrayal. At the end of the day, all that mattered was that her friends were safe, for one day more.

Anne closed her eyes as the other worms; no longer distracted by Marcy’s feeble attempts at rescue, closed in.

A strange ‘fwhip’ sound snapped into Anne’s ear, and she felt something grab her arm. So this was it. Bracing herself, Anne prepared for the pain that would come as soon as the worm bit down.

Only to flap her eyes open and let out a shout of fear as she was pulled through the air; forcefully enough to throw the worms back. She saw a flash of white, and Marcy’s face, before the two of them collided and fell to the ground painfully.

Laying there, Marcy just smiled down at Anne’s confused face.

“Did you see that, Anne? Nearly fifty feet! That’s five times further than my expectations!”

“Wha?” Anne said, before looking down at the creature wrapped around Marcy’s arm.

The Nephilant blinked at her slowly. From its mouth, a simple white strand extended over to Anne’s arm; wrapping around it several times for extra leverage. Wordlessly, Marcy pulled out another small earthworm and placed it on the string. Anne let out a cry of shock as the wire unwrapped itself and popped back into the ant’s mouth, worm and all.

Their reunion was cut short, however, as a nearby tree exploded. The razor coated worm that had just burst through it shouted angrily at having its prey suddenly escape, and the two would-be dinners shared a glance before rushing back to their feet.

“Time to run!”

“Yep!”

The two of them retreated, but as more of the forest was destroyed around them, Anne realized their fight wasn’t over.

“They’re following us!”

“Lead them to the lake! You need to buy me some time, Anne!”

There was no hesitation in her voice. If there was one thing Anne could believe in, it was her friends. She could hardly believe that she thought Marcy would betray her and run away. “You got it!”

Spinning on her heels, Anne ran backwards for a few steps, before reaching down and lobbing a small rock at one of the worms. “Hey, you ugly frog food! You’re so stupid that…um…” Anne spun back around as one of them lunged at her, ignoring Marcy to do so, “Actually, never mind. Just follow me!”

The rainwater flowed over her face as she flew across the mud; throwing it high into the air behind her as she ran. It was coming down heavier now; enough that it was starting to soak into Anne’s shirt. But admittedly, she wasn’t sure how much of it was rain and how much of it was sweat. Regardless, as she led the worms on a merry chase, Anne’s breath came out heavy.

Nearly tripping as one of the worms lunged again and came up short, Anne burst out of the jungle onto the shores of the lake. Spinning around at the edge of the water, Anne immediately regretted her decision. The worms coming after her eclipsed her vision, an unending wall of undulating, razor sharp flesh that was pouring over itself in an attempt to get closer to her, with a dozen snapping jaws that were lined with uncountable teeth.

They weren’t so much chasing her as they were flowing after her.

Deciding that she’d suddenly really like a swim, Anne spun around again and dove into the water. Her ripples were quickly overcome by the drops of rain as she ploughed through the water, and then a wave of force pushed her forward as her pursuers followed her into the deep.

“M…Marcy? Marcy!” Anne shouted. In truth, she was at a loss as to what to do. In her mind, Marcy would already be here; jumping in the water wasn’t part of her plan. She longed for some kind of answer, and to her relief, a distinctly human shout echoed over the surface of the lake.

“Good work, Anne! Listen, you need to get to one of those lily-pads! Sit on it, and do not put any part of your body in the water!” Marcy shouted, from somewhere.

Bobbing her head above the water, Anne wasted no time in tracking down one of the large green leaves and making a B-line towards it. Behind her, just a generous stone’s throw away, the worms slithered through the water like mud; faster in this element than the land.

In the nick of time, Anne reached the edge of the so-important plant; pulling herself up and onto it. Twisting around so that she was sitting, Anne gripped her legs tightly and pulled herself into a ball as the worms swam closer.

Out of the corner of her eye, back on the shore, Anne could see the shape of Marcy. There was something in her hand, or a group of somethings, and with a leap of joy, Anne recognized them.

“Electric Centipedes!” Anne shouted.

Grinning, Marcy spun her hand around in a large arc, holding five centipedes by their tails. With a shout, she released them, sending them soaring through the air. “Prepare for a shocking experience, worms!” Marcy shouted.

The moment that the centipedes hit the water, Anne was struck with a thought. How did Marcy know just how much voltage the lily-pad beneath her would block? Plus, wasn’t she, and the lily-pad itself, covered in water anyway from the rain and swim?

Then she was electrocuted.

The energy from the centipedes raced through the water at the speed of sound; latching onto and shocking everything it could find. And the worms certainly had a lot of mass to latch onto. Convulsing in the water, they sent huge waves crashing against Anne’s lily-pad, who was just powering through the pain herself. The smell of delicious burnt meat wafted through the air until finally, there was a loud ‘pop’, followed by four more as the centipedes exploded under their own power.

“S…sorry, Anne!” Marcy shouted. “Are…are you okay? Please say yes.”

Slowly, Anne raised her thumb; her hair sticking out into a huge afro as she coughed a plume of smoke out of her mouth. An arc of electricity bounced along her head. “N…never better!” She shouted, and it was kind of true, because this was better than being eaten.

Looking around, the lake was filled with the freshly cooked bodies of the Razorworms, as well as several larger fish that were too close to the impact zone. Still half in a daze, Anne stumbled off her makeshift raft and swam back to the shore, back into Marcy’s waiting arms.

Marcy jumped slightly as Anne embraced her. Not because she was nervous or anything, but because the static electricity still racing through Anne’s body gave her a little shock. Quietly, Anne just stood there as the adrenaline started to drain from her system; slowing her heart rate and bringing her back to ‘normal.’ Eventually, she took a deep breath, and pulled away, smiling.

Holding on to her shoulders, Marcy tried to smile back, before her guilt overpowered her joy and the corners of her mouth dropped. Breaking eye contact, she immediately locked onto the ground in front of her instead of Anne’s face.

“Listen, Anne, I just…wanna apologize. Because I think you might be right. There’s a time and a place for research, and it shouldn’t be during something so important. I know I can get a bit distracted sometimes, and this world is just so fantastic and alien, it’s a dream come true for me, but that’s no excuse for how I’ve been acting. You’ve been working so hard to keep us safe, and happy, and fed, and I’ve just been…abusing that for my own fun and rationalizing my actions. I’m sorry. I promise I’ll save the research for when we have time to spare.”

Anne stared at her, before letting out an awkward laugh.

“Marcy, are you crazy? Your research just saved my life! I should be the one who’s sorry! You’re right, you were always right! Maybe we do need to understand this world better if we want to have any hope to survive in it. I was so focused on not letting you or Sasha down that I didn’t realize how important your work was, how it might help us in the long run. You research and record and remember as much as you want, you hear me!”

“So, I guess…” Marcy started.

“We’re both a little wrong.” Anne finished.

Shrugging, Anne motioned to the fried bugs around her. “Anyway, I think we just found a little bit of food anyway. You wanna help me grab one of these things to bring back to Sasha? I don’t wanna walk back to the mango trees in the rain.”

“Sure, sure, just let me…get this down…” Marcy replied, crouching down in front of one of the bugs and trying to pull its razor sharp hooks off its body for further study.

“Marcy…” Anne started, before her friend stood back up.

“Haha, r…right. Time and a place.”

Grabbing each side of the worm like a sleeping bag filled with meat, the girls hoisted it into the air and began their heroic return.

The return to camp was a joyous one. Especially when they pushed through into the grove and saw the improvements Sasha had made.

A roof, or more accurately, a canopy now covered about two thirds of the camp. Giant Hostas leaves were erected around the perimeter of the camp; their stems crudely shoved into the mud in a consistent pattern as to guide the water away from the centre of the clearing; the leaves overlapping and crossing when necessary for maximum coverage.

Away from the edges, more leaves were tied together into large groups, acting as giant umbrellas that worked to protect the more important parts of the camp from the rain above. Things like the fire, the girl’s ‘seats,’ their sleeping pit, were all shielded from the dreaded water. For the parts of the camp that Sasha hadn’t waterproofed, crude channels were dug into the mud, leading the water away and out of the camp.

All in all, Anne was very impressed.

“Wow!”

Standing up suddenly, Sasha smiled and spread her arms warmly.

“What do you think of that! I told you that I would find a way! I would have finished it too, but…”

Sasha’s face took on a dark, nearly mad look to it as she recalled her day.

“Did you girls know…” Sasha started, panting heavily, “that there are ten foot long LEECH FISH, in the river? That travel in packs of FIFTEEN? And that can, apparently, wrap their bodies around you like a snake? Nobody go to the river alone anymore.”

“Interesting.” Marcy said, pulling out the Amphipedia, “Can you describe them in better detail?”

“Now is not the time, Marcy!”

“Haha, you know, we kinda fought a snake ourselv…”

“You too, Anne.” Sasha said, waving her hand dismissively. “Please tell me you found one of the two things I asked of you. Or both! Both would be great! I’m starving.”

“Oh boy, did we! Don’t ask how, but it’s pre-cooked too!” Anne said, pulling her prize forward and signalling Marcy to drop it on the ground in front of them. With a disgusting ‘shlorp,’ it hit the mud, jiggling slightly.

Sasha nearly threw up.

“No.”

“What?” Anne and Marcy asked.

“I’m not eating bugs.”

“What? Sasha, this wasn’t an easy thing to get.”

“Yeah. And you know, per pound, bugs are actually really high in…”

“I’m not eating that. I’m not eating worms, I’m not eating cockroaches, I’m not eating locusts.” Sasha started, counting them off on her fingers, “I want normal food! You couldn’t have found…eggs or fruit or something?”

“Actually, we did find a bunch of mango trees…”

“And you brought back this?”

“I mean, it wasn’t like we could just grab them, there was this bug in the way.”

“And you took care of it, like I trusted the two of you to?”

“Yeah.” They said in unison.

“Fantastic. Then I’ll just go pick some of those tomorrow in the morning. No need to eat that…thing.”

“It’s called a Razorworm. But we, uh, pulled off the razors.”

Sitting down next to her friend, Anne smiled, “Come on, Sasha. We worked really hard for this, and it could last us a long time. I know it’s a little gross, but couldn’t you just put that aside? For us?”

“No.” Sasha said definitely.

“But…”

“No. End of discussion, Anne.”

Anne sighed. She knew that end of discussion meant end of discussion, there was no more point in talking.

“Now give me that candy bar I know you still have, I’ll be eating that tonight.”

Anne hesitated, until Sasha looked at her expectantly. “Fine,” she replied, reaching into her backpack. It was the least she could do after failing to provide for Sasha after all she’d done for them. Sasha took it greedily, tearing off the wrapper and digging in while Marcy cut off a slice of worm for the both of them remaining.

Dinner passed quickly as the rain started to pick up, and the wind swept a cold chill through the camp. The Razorworm tasted surprisingly like bacon with a hint of nut, a taste that Anne truly didn’t mind, and Sasha only gagged twice while watching her companions eat it. Stoking the fire, the three girls huddled closer to more effectively steal its warmth.

The sound of the rain beating on their makeshift roof was anything but relaxing, but the sense of safety and protection it provided filled them with a sense of contentment. They quickly fell back into their usual routines. Marcy sketching out the Nephilant in her book, Sasha staring mindlessly at her phone, and Anne lying on her back, staring up at the angry cloud filled sky and occasionally wiping rain out of her eyes.

“You did a great job, Sasha.” Anne said, suddenly.

There was a moment of silence.

“I guess…you did too. Even if I am going to bed hungry tonight, at least we know there is food out there.” Sasha replied.

There was yet another moment of silence.

“How…how long do you think we’re going to be here? You don’t think we could be here forever, do you?”

The silence took on a sad tone, carrying it through the air heavily. Marcy looked up from her book, swallowing nervously as Sasha fidgeted. She let out a weak laugh to try and diffuse the atmosphere.

“Hey, where’s this coming from? Of course we’re not going to be here forever! We have the music box, don’t we?”

“Yeah, but…I broke it.”

Sasha scoffed, “We can fix it. It’s just a couple of crummy rocks, how hard can they be to find? Imagine how much worse things would be if you didn’t keep such a good eye on it.”

“I…guess.”

“What do you think, Marcy? You have the brains, we’ll be here, what, a week, tops?” Sasha said, looking at her other friend.

“Huh?” Marcy replied, looking flustered, “Oh, I mean, well…maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“It depends, really. If the gems really are this world’s equivalent to batteries, then we should be able to go home as soon as we make contact with the natives and buy some new ones.”

Both of the girls snapped their full attention to Marcy.

“Wait, natives? What are you talking about?”

“I mean, there has to be natives, right? It can’t just be an endless jungle. There’s gotta be people, villages, kings waiting to hand out quests to brave adventurers like us. Just because we haven’t seen them yet doesn’t mean they’re not out there.”

“Or, or, what if, we’ve gone back in time to before people showed up? Like in that movie.”

“Anne, I can assure you as someone who aced her history tests, we have not gone back in time.”

“Aw.”

“Wait, wait, back up a step, Marcy.” Sasha said, sliding closer to her, “You really think there are people out there? Like, towns and stuff?”

“Do you not?”

“I…guess I never considered it.”

There was another moment of awkward silence.

“So…so what do we do, do we track them down, do we follow the river, what…” Sasha started, before Marcy cut her off.

“Right now, Sasha, we take a nap and wake up ready to face another day. I appreciate you caring for us, but you really need to just relax occasionally. All this stress can’t be good for you.”

“It’s a very stressful situation!”

“Whatever.” Marcy said, standing up and laying down next to Anne, resting her head on her chest. Watching her silently for a moment, Sasha sighed before doing the same; only her head rested on Marcy. Following suit, Anne formed the triangle.

“Aw yeah, Triangle of Friendship forever!” Marcy shouted, throwing her hands into the air.

Anne let out a chuckle and threw her hands up as well. “Triangle of Friendship forever!”

They both waited for Sasha to do the same. Sighing, Sasha reluctantly said, “Triangle of Friendship forever. Now will you two go to sleep?”

“Yeah. I’m satisfied. Good night, BFF’s!” Anne said, giggling.

“Night, Anne,” the other two said in unison.

And after everything they’d gone through, it wasn’t long until they drifted off to the sound of the rain finally coming to a slow.


	3. In the Hall of the Mountain Frog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasha's always been good at making plans. But a quick journey up one of Amphibia's most dangerous mountains might be more than her and Anne can handle. Even the best laid plans are subject to the whims of fate, and only time will tell if the girl's relationship can survive when they fall apart in the moment.

The next day was fairly uneventful. After the near-death experiences of all three members of the camp, the girls agreed that maybe it would be best to take the next day just a little slower. With food, water and shelter all taken care off, none of them felt too bad about taking the time to de-stress from the terrible situation they’d found themselves in.

The morning opened with the same routine as the last day. They went to the river, washed their clothes of the mud on their backs, drank their fill and sat down to talk for a moment or two.

After that, Anne and Marcy helped Sasha to finish the ‘roofing’ of their camp in case more rain showed up, and gathered up a small supply of fruit for her; which she ate greedily in a manner that reminded Anne very much of the Rattleworm itself. But she hadn’t eaten properly for nearly three days, so neither of them could blame her.

The rest of the day passed peacefully, except for when Sasha convinced Anne to go fetch some more of the ever helpful leaves, and lay them down on the ground where they usually slept; in what Marcy believed to be an ineffective attempt at keeping the mud off them. She still arranged them in a triangle though, since they still didn’t have pillows and honestly, sleeping on Sasha or Marcy’s chest made her feel closer to them. Like they were always just there, ready to protect her. They’d never do anything crazy like betray her. That was ridiculous.

After that, they ate dinner, and Anne laid down to rest, proving Marcy right as she accidentally tore or otherwise poked through the thin leaves underneath her.

“Well, it was worth a shot.” Sasha commented, laying down on top of her.

“Hey Marcy, you coming to bed too?”

Looking up from her book, Marcy just gave a forceful smile. “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m just gonna finish up this page and then I’ll slide in underneath you. Is that cool?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” Anne said, already drifting off to sleep.

Sasha yawned next to her, and rolled over onto her side. “Just don’t get carried away, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

And with that, Anne and Sasha fell asleep.

Anne awoke suddenly to the sound of shouting, her head still resting against the ground. Pulling herself out of the realm of sleep, still drowsy, she looked up at Sasha, who was looking decidedly unhappy.

“Marcy!” She shouted.

Twisting her head so that Marcy was in sight, Anne watched as she flinched; tossing her book into the air and then lunging to catch it. It bounced between her hands for a couple of seconds, before she got a solid grasp on it.

Marcy looked tired. There was a group of bags underneath her eyes, and her eyelids themselves were drooping down like a slowly closing garage door. With a dumb look on her face, Marcy sat back down, face down to the ground. Not because she was guilty, but because it was too much energy to keep it up.

Still, Sasha gave her no respite. “Marcy, did you stay up all night writing in your book?”

“Uhhhh,” Marcy said, looking over her shoulder at the rising sun, her head swinging loosely “Y…yeah. Haha.”

Sasha pursed her lips and took a deep breath. “Seriously?”

Yawning, Marcy closed the Amphipedia. “I guess the time just got away from me. Sorry, Sasha.”

Anne watched silently as Sasha ran her hand through her hair, groaning. “Sorry? Sorry! What are you doing, Marcy! I had things we were gonna do today, how am I supposed to do that while you’re buzzed like this?”

Marcy just looked at her with hollow eyes, before shrugging.

“Rgh.” Sasha said, before stomping closer. “From now on, I’m taking that book when I go to bed.”

“Aw, c’mon.”

“No buts!”

Ripping the book out of Marcy’s hands was no challenge; she was barely holding onto it anyway.

“Alright, stand up.” Sasha said, pulling Marcy to her feet.

Marcy wobbled uncertainly, before sitting back down. Sasha just sighed and ran her hands through her hair again. On her face, Anne could see something bubbling to the surface. Gritting her teeth, Sasha counted to ten before turning around and facing Anne.

The tension on her face dropped instantly.

“Oh, Anne, you’re awake! Fantastic. You’re not going to believe this, Marcy…”

“Stayed up all night. I…heard.” Anne said, rising to her feet and stretching the kink out of her back that she got from sleeping without a pillow.

“Oh.” Sasha said, rubbing the back of her head, “It’s just…can you tell her how irresponsible she’s been? I kinda had this whole plan for the day, and she’s just ruined it.”

Peeking over at Marcy, Anne gave an awkward smile. “Oh, come on, you know how she gets some times.”

“Don’t defend her!”

Calling out, Marcy tried to stand up again, “No, no, it’s fine, girls, don’t fight. I can still…still do whatever Sasha wants. It’s fine.”

Walking over, Sasha gave her a light tap and watched as she fell face first into the mud. A moment later, the sound of snoring filled the camp.

“Great.” Sasha said, sitting down and resting her head in her hands.

Sitting down next to her, Anne placed her arm around Sasha’s shoulder. “You alright?”

“Yeah, just…just thinking.”

Standing up suddenly, Sasha waved her arms around, “No, no, Marcy is right, it‘s fine. We can still do this, just you and me.”

Raising her arm, Anne cocked her head to the side. “Yeah! Quick question, what are we doing?”

Leaning in, Sasha let out a mad smile, “You and me, Anne, are gonna climb that mountain!” She said, leaning back and pointing towards a large mountain sitting several kilometres away. It easily eclipsed everything else in the jungle, rising so high that not only did no trees grow on its length, but at its maximum height, the faint white colouring of snow could be seen. As if it knew that it was being watched, a large chunk of snow broke away from its brothers, and slid down towards the ground.

Anne just stared at it with her mouth open.

“Don’t worry. I scouted out a path yesterday that should bring us straight to the base. From there, it’s just a simple mountain trail up to the top, probably. Think of it like hiking!”

“That…uh…that wasn’t my issue.”

“Okay, what’s wrong?”

“First, what! Secondly, why?”

Tapping her head, Sasha took a few steps back. “Because I have a plan. That mountain is the tallest thing in this swamp. If we get up there, we’ll have a perfect view over everything else. And if there’s a village, or smoke, or anything that tells us where people are, we’ll have an idea about where to start on getting us home!”

“Except…” Sasha started, “We were supposed to go up it together. This is a dangerous world. I don’t want to separate us if we can avoid it.”

“But there’s nothing we can do!” Sasha said, clapping her hands together.

“What? We can still bring Marcy along.”

Both of them looked over to where their friend was sleeping. It occurred to them that they should probably flip her over onto her back, and once they did so, stared at her for a moment longer. Loudly, Sasha clicked her fingers in front of Marcy’s sleeping face.

“Bring her along? Anne, she can barely stand. If we bring her along, she’s just going to get in the way.”

“We can’t just leave her here, it’s not safe! You said so yourself! What if some man-eating bug wanders into the camp while we’re out?”

“We can’t just sit around and waste another day babying her! You always baby her; she needs to learn to take care of herself.”

“By abandoning her in the woods?”

“It’s not like she’s hurt! If something attacks the camp, she’ll wake up, be well rested, and run away. It’s not like I’m throwing her into a wolf den. It’s our camp, it’s the safest place in the jungle.”

“Still…I think I should stay here with her.”

“Oh, and leave me to travel through the woods alone? And get eaten by some giant monster while the two of you sleep?”

“No, I…”

“I thought you were better than that, Anne! You’re supposed to be someone I can trust!”

“You…you can trust me!”

“Good, then lets ditch Marcy already, and go find us some natives.” Sasha said, exaggeratedly motioning for Anne to follow her through the undergrowth that guarded their camp.

“No, I just…we can wait. If we wait a day or two, then there’s nothing…”

“No.” Sasha said, definitively. “This isn’t funny anymore, Anne. Marcy stays here and the two of us go. Understand? I’m not discussing this with you anymore.”

“I…okay.” Anne said, conceding, “But we should make it quick. Back before nightfall.”

“See, I knew you were a reliable friend. Besides, it’s not like I was planning to be out there in the middle of the night anyway.” Sasha said, smiling.

The compliment did do a little to mend Anne’s bruised ego. Even if she didn’t fully agree with Sasha, at least she was being a good friend by obeying her. At least she was showing that, when things were bad, Sasha could trust her. And…and besides, it wasn’t like it was Sasha’s fault that Marcy had stayed up all night. It wouldn’t be right to blame her for wanting to stick to the plan to get them home.

Calling out from the treeline, Sasha continued to grin. “Well? You coming or not, slowpoke?”

“Of…of course I am, you…um…speedy…thing.” Anne replied, still focusing on her thoughts.

Yeah. At a time like this, at least she could always fall back on the idea that she was being a good friend to her BFF’s, and they were being good friends to her. Nothing could break up the Triforce of Friendship!

Looking back, Anne stole one final glance at Marcy. “Hey, you just rest up, girl. Power and Courage are gonna be right back with a way home.”

Although she couldn’t see it as she followed Sasha through the growths, a faint smile crept on Marcy’s unconscious face.

The journey to the base of the mountain was uneventful. Anne caught up to Sasha easily, quickly striking up a conversation with her to distract from the time it took to walk there. They eyed their surroundings loosely, but to their relief, weren’t attacked or otherwise slowed by any kind of dangerous insect looming nearby.

It wasn’t until they reached the base of the mountain that they realized that magnitude of the task that Sasha had set out for them.

“So…uh, any ideas?” Anne asked, looking straight up.

A solid stone cliff currently faced them. Or perhaps, cliff was a little too inaccurate. It was a 65 degree angle straight up, with no kind of solid grip to hold on to or any kind of plant life. All the way to the top, loose rocks littered the ground, uncountable in their number. As they watched, a small botfly landed on one of the stones, sending it sliding down; catching and tumbling on its brothers until a full on rockslide was in effect.

The rocks came crashing down in front of the unstoppable duo and settled quickly.

Sasha motioned at the slope uncertainly. “Well, I mean, we just climb it, right?”

“That’s nearly straight up and full of rocks, we can’t climb that!”

Staring up, Sasha watched as some more rocks tumbled down, shattering as they slammed into the ground with an incredible amount of force. She stole a glance at Anne, before swallowing loudly. “Sure we can. Don’t be so negative.”

“Sasha, it’s too dangerous.”

“I dunno if you’ve realized this yet, Anne, but we’re kind of in a dangerous situation already. If we don’t get up this mountain, we’re going to be stuck here. You wanna be sleeping in the mud forever?”

“…no.”

“Exactly, now listen,” Sasha started, wrapping an arm around Anne. “See that tree up there?” She said, pointing upwards.

True to her word, at the very top of the brow was a lonely, warped tree; leafless and dead. Despite this though, both of them could clearly see that its roots ran into the ground, catching the stones around it in a net of wood that secured it to the earth. Cocking her head to the side, Anne nodded slowly, but kept a grimace on her face.

“I’m thinking, we get some rope, or a vine, or something, and then one of us heads up alone to tie it around that tree. Then, whoever stays behind can use that to help them get up safely.”

“I…guess. Why can’t we go up together?”

“There’s no sense in putting both of us in danger, Anne.”

Anne rubbed the back of her head. “Haha, oh yeah, right.”

“Right. So stay here while I gather up some rope.” Sasha said, quickly descending into the bush on her lonesome.

Watching her go, Anne quietly wandered closer to the crag, noting how much harder it got as the mountain sloped upwards. Under her feet, loose rocks slid backwards; every step causing a miniature rockslide that only stopped when the crag bottomed out. As the climb got more and more extreme, Anne found herself having to crawl up it on four legs, like some kind of animal. It was nearly impossible to make progress. Every foot had to be earned by a quick sweep of her hand to clear away the rubble and find the solid rock beneath to grip onto.

Her heart skipped a beat as the ground gave way beneath her and she slid backwards. It was a only a little, just enough to jolt her nerves, but it was enough to make her reconsider the plan and carefully inch her way back down to solid ground, where she sat down to rest.

Ten minutes later, Sasha returned, a bundle of vines looped around her shoulder.

“See? Nice and easy.”

Anne just looked up at her; Sasha caught on quick.

“What’s up, dude?”

“Sasha, listen, I…I don’t think we should we do this.”

“We need to get up that mountain.” Sasha said, simply. But it was the kind of simple, blunt statement that she knew carried much weight when backed up with authority.

“No no, I understand that, I agree with you. But we’ll just hurt ourselves if we attempt to climb this. I think it would be better if we looked for another way up. A way that’s a little…safer.”

Sasha glanced upwards, and then over to the rope over her body.

“No.”

“Sasha…”

“No. Anne, we don’t have time to find another way. If we don’t make it to the top of the mountain and back before nightfall, we’ll be stranded up there. We’ll be sitting ducks for whatever freako monster bug lives around here. Maybe there is another way, who knows, but I’m not going to waste time looking for it.”

Anne sighed.

“And neither are you.”

“Yes, Sasha.”

Unshouldering her gear, Sasha held it out. “Now come on, let’s get you up there!”

Tensing up, Anne took a step back. “W…wait, me? No, I’m not doing that, are you crazy? You do it!”

“No? Anne, what are you talking about?”

“I’m not climbing that, I’ll break my leg!”

“I thought you were supposed to be reliable. I’m trusting you here, don’t make me regret it.”

“What if I fall?”

“Then I’ll catch you.” Sasha said, raising her shoulders and loosening them in preparation. “It’ll be just like that time in cheerleading. Remember that? We were gonna do that triple flip, and impress everyone, and you were too nervous to attempt it?”

Anne broke eye contact. She did remember. “Yeah.”

“And sure, it was difficult, but I didn’t let you down once. You found your courage, and you pushed through! You did that, Anne!”

“I…I guess I did.”

“You’re braver than you think you are, Anne. You don’t need to be scared of a little mountain like this. Especially when you have me backing you up every step of the way.”

A blush started to spread across Anne’s face and she turned around quickly to hide it from her friend.

“Okay, sure, but…I mean, this is a bit different than that.” Anne replied. This was a point that she wasn’t going to back down from. Her hands, still burned from their first day here, ached slightly as her mind went over the worst case scenarios.

Sasha slouched backwards and let out a groan. “Still? Usually the motivational speech does it.”

Walking closer, Sasha threw an arm over Anne, “Okay, let’s talk honestly then.”

Pausing, Sasha corrected herself, “More honestly.”

“Anne, you’re my best friend, and you know that I’d never do anything to purposefully hurt you. But we really need to get up this mountain. I know it’s scary. But sometimes, friends have to do things that scare them for their friends. That’s just what being a good friend means. If your friend needs help, you help them, right?”

Anne’s hands flared up again as Sasha’s words rang true, for Anne, at least.

“I thought you were someone I could trust. I thought you were my friend.” Sasha said, hugging herself and turning around; a move she did with practiced efficiency. “But…maybe you’re not.”

“N…no, I am! We are friends! I’ll…” Anne glanced at the hill in front of her, before sighing dejectedly, “I’ll climb up the rock face for you, okay? You can trust me.”

Internally, Anne was panicking as Sasha stared at her, a cold, detached look on her face. But it was a fear that was quickly removed when Sasha smiled warmly again and motioned her closer.

“Wonderful!” Sasha said, clapping her hands together, “See? I knew there was a reason you were my best friend. Now get to it, clap clap.”

Picking up the vine that Sasha was planning to use as a rope, Anne walked closer to the scree. (Scree being a loose collection of rocks surrounding the base of a mountain, which Marcy would have no doubt told Anne were she not currently in dream land.) Rubbing her upper arm, Anne locked her eyes onto the goal ahead and stepped forward onto the mass of loose stones.

It wasn’t long until she was back on all fours again, sweeping away at the ground in front of her in an attempt to make her climb just a little bit easier. Glancing back, Sasha gave her a helpful thumbs up as she worked her way steadily up the mountain.

Suddenly, Anne trusted her weight to the wrong stone; one which cracked loose from the shattered earth and went flinging itself down the slope, bringing hundreds of other stones with it. Anne stumbled, her balance gone, and teetered precariously as she swung her arms around in an attempt to regain it.

She could hear her heartbeat in her ears as her hands slipped as well, and let out a shout as she grabbed out blindly. With supernatural luck, her hand slipped straight through the rubble to the stronger stones beneath, and secured her back in place. Her muscles ached as she practically slammed her body into the wall in front of her.

Just breathing, she shivered as a cold wind was captured in the sweat coating her body.

“Hey Anne, be a bit more careful up there! One of those rocks nearly hit me!” Sasha shouted.

“R…right! Sorry.” Anne shouted back.

True to Sasha’s word, Anne made it up the incline, despite her slow pace. Reaching the tree, Anne seized its roots to help her climb the last few feet, before pulling herself up with one of its branches. Resting for a second, she looped a section of the rope around the tree and spun around, giving Sasha a thumbs up back.

“See? I told you, you could do it! Good job, Anne!” Sasha shouted, her voice noticeably quieter.

Tossing the line down, Anne let out a sigh of relief as Sasha grabbed it and began to work her way upwards as well. Maybe Sasha was right. Maybe she was just making a big deal about something that was relatively easy. The two of them were athletic; a simple climb should never have been something to panic over.

She was stronger than she thought. She was lucky to have Sasha around to remind her of that.

Shocking back to reality, Anne stumbled forward as the ground beneath her shifted again. But that should have been impossible, this place was supported by the roots of the tree, it was as solid as it could get.

Unless…

The tree couldn’t support the weight of two teenage girls.

“S…Sasha! You need to stop right now!” Anne shouted, waving her arms wildly.

“What? I’m already halfway there, dude, what’s the problem?”

A loud snapping sound echoed down the hill, answering Sasha’s question. Her eyes went wide as her mouth drooped open. Both of the girls froze in place, aware that the slightly shift in weight could be disastrous. Anne’s breath came out slowly.

And then there was another snap and Anne was thrown forwards as a fist of wood collided with her back. The ground was quick to meet her, and then leave her again, as she tumbled head over heels down. The force of hitting the rocks would probably be easier to take if they didn’t also jab and cut painfully into her as she rolled.

“Anne!” Sasha shouted, ditching the rope immediately. With practiced, cheerleader grace, Sasha leapt over the treacherous terrain, until she was directly in Anne’s path. Although it was hard to see clearly, with the world becoming a blur for her, Anne could swear that there was a purple light shining from Sasha’s eyes as she half tackled, half grabbed Anne.

Spit flew from Sasha’s grit teeth as she carried Anne’s momentum into a spin, placing herself in the way of the ensuing landslide and sliding down the slope herself. Her body acted as a shield as they stumbled. The air filled with meaty thwacks as rocks bombarded the pair; Sasha taking the lion’s share of abuse, the whole time slipping and struggling to maintain her balance.

Gathering her senses for a second, Anne dug her heels into the ground, using herself as a wedge to slow their descent. “S…Sasha, the tree!”

“I know!” Sasha shouted back.

There was a whack that sounded heavier, and meatier, than its predecessors, and the pair was shoved forward again. Sasha let out a groan as they gradually began to slow, coming to a complete stop just a few steps away from the level ground they had just left. The two stood there as the ground continued to roll past them; the sheer amount of dust alone making it impossible for them to calm their nerves.

Both of them stood there longer then they’d like to admit.

“S…Sasha? Are you hurt?”

“What do you think?”

“…yes?” Anne said nervously.

“Actually…” Sasha started, letting go of Anne and standing up straight. She fought down a groan as a wave of pain spread over her body. “I…don’t think I broke anything. Just bruises.”

“What about the tree?” Anne said.

Turning around, the girls gasped as they saw the sight in front of them.

The old, rotting tree had somehow managed to wedge itself horizontally between two large stone outcroppings, effectively acting as a barrier for the rocks above it and handedly stopping the landslide all by itself. In a freak accident, it had essentially formed an overhang for the girls to safely huddle in as the land rushed by them.

“I…I thought that hit you! I thought you were goner!”

“So…did I.” Sasha said, rubbing her back. But there wasn’t even a bruise from the supposed impact of wood against body.

Looking back, Sasha was more in shock than anything. “I guess it got wedged between those rocks before it could slam into me. Talk about lucky, huh?”

“Haha, yeah.”

There was a moment of silence, before Anne essentially tackled Sasha and wrapped her hands around in a gigantic hug. In return, Sasha winced.

“Wow wow, easy there, Anne. I’m kinda covered in sore spots now.”

“I…I know.” Anne said, nervously. “Would…would you be mad if I said that I was too?”

“I mean, you fell down a mountain.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that.”

In her mind, it made sense. If she had noticed that the tree was loose, or taken some of the weight herself to pull Sasha up, nothing would have gone wrong. That’s what Marcy would have done. There were a dozen ways that she could have helped the situation, and she chose none of them. An apology only made sense.

Looking back up the slope, Sasha rubbed her bruises gently. “You know, I think it might be a smarter idea to look for somewhere else to climb. This is a little too dangerous.”

Anne let out a sniffle. “Didn’t I say…”

“I know,” Sasha said, cutting her off, “But I still think I was right. Things nearly went to plan, remember that.”

Anne just cocked her head to the side, before letting go of her friend.

Now free, Sasha slid a little further down, until she hit the jungle’s edge. “Now come on, we gotta make up for lost time.”

Redistributing the weight on the back, the most of which was her bag, Anne slid down next to her and began their journey lengthways, around the mountain, in search of a place that was a little more out of harm’s way.

An hour or two later, the mildly stoppable duo were back on track. The path they’d taken was a windy one that twisted back and forth but was certainly better than trying to fight the slope of the mountain all the way to the top. And while Sasha was still wincing with every step on the way forward, she was certainly handling the trip better than Anne, who was already starting to pant and sweat from the exertion.

Naturally, this lead to Sasha pulling ahead; but never so far that she lost sight of her friend. Marching forward, the two passed through a kind of natural pass; where the cliff wall next to them stretched overhead in jagged, pointed spines; almost as if the mountain had a giant claw that it was attempting to ensnare the girls in. The sunlight flitted between the ‘fingers’ of the mountain, shadows disappearing over the edge, which actually was nearly a straight drop directly to the jungle floor.

Peering over, Anne could see that they’d already made considerable progress. And yet, looking out over the forest, her view was still obscured by many of the larger trees, most of which were doubtlessly on large hills themselves.

Walking shoulder to shoulder, Anne was relieved as the path widened; giving the two of them more space. Only to stop as Sasha froze in front of her suddenly.

The spines above them merged into a solid roof, forming a cave in the side of the mountain face. Or at the very least, an overhang to protect from the elements. And in this cave was a large nest, formed of branches that were nearly as big as Anne’s arm. And on top of that nest, was a resting bird, proportionally sized to the rest of the nest.

“Shh.” Sasha said hastily, holding Anne back.

Looking over herself, Anne felt her heart skip a beat.

“It’s sleeping.” Sasha whispered.

Anne nodded, careful not to make any sounds. As she watched, the bird nestled its head deeper into its wing, unaware of their presence. The bird itself looked like a giant stork, now that Anne could see it better.

Silently, Sasha raised her hand, and pointed deeper into the cave. Their way forward was just a little distance away from the nest itself, but thanks to how the cave roof lowered, once they were there, the bird wouldn’t be able to follow them.

It would be a relatively simple task to just sneak past the bird.

Anne nodded in understanding.

“No, Anne, listen.” Sasha said, still whispering, while crouched down. With a wave of her hand, she motioned for Anne to match her.

“I know what you’re thinking, but I have a better idea.” Sasha said.

“Lay it on me.”

“We’re going to need to come back this way once we reach the summit, you’re aware of this, right?”

“Right.”

“So what are we gonna do if, near nightfall, this thing is awake? We’d be trapped on the mountain until it left, which could take hours.”

Anne nodded, “Okay, sure, but what are you talking about?”

“I think we should…chase it away.”

Anne put a hand to her chin and nodded quickly. “I don’t get it.”

Sasha nodded back, confirming what she’d said. Perhaps more to herself than to Anne, “We chase it away.”

Almost immediately, Anne stood back up. “Chase it away! Sasha, do you see…”

Across the cave, the bird shifted noticeably. Its neck flailed out from under its wing, before wobbling over uncertainly to find rest under the other one. Holding her breath, Anne lowered her voice, “Sasha, do you see the size of that thing? It’s bigger than a bus! We can’t fight that thing.”

“We’re not gonna kill it or anything, but listen… right now, it’s asleep. And if it wakes up, it’ll be drowsy. That means it’s weak. If this is anything like the birds back home, its first instinct at the sign of danger will be to run away.”

Placing a hand on Anne’s shoulder, Sasha smiled warmly.

“And once it’s gone, we just push its nest over the edge. With no reason to come back, it’ll find some other place to roost and we can get back down the mountain with ease.”

This made…a certain level of sense. Anne figured that any creature that was suddenly woken up in a world like Amphibia would choose to flee before sticking around to see what caused the disturbance. And at the end of the day, it really was just a big bird, and she’d chased dozens of pigeons away from her bike after school. It…might work.

And the thought of having to fight that thing in the dark, exhausted from their long trip, was also not very appealing. But still…

“I…I don’t think we should put ourselves in danger like that. It’s reckless.”

“Aw, come on, Anne, this again? I thought we were over it. You trust me, don’t you?”

Anne glanced over at the sleeping animal. “I…I do, but I just don’t think…”

Cutting her off, Sasha leaned against the nearby wall, “Friends help friends, don’t they, Anne? Good friends, like you and me, especially.”

“You’re…you’re right.”

“Are you a good friend, Anne?”

“…yes.” Anne replied, meekly.

“Then help me scare away this bird, so we can get up the gosh darn mountain!”

Anne sighed. “Okay, let’s do it.”

Standing still, she watched as Sasha passed her, heading deeper into the cave. She tried to will her legs to move, but a sense of apprehension kept them glued to the ground. Her mind was screaming at her to fight back, but there was something in the way that stopped her. Some invisible barrier in her mind that told her to swallow her pride and do as Sasha commanded.

Oh wait, she knew what that was called. That barrier in her head was called friendship.

Sneaking after her friend, Anne returned to Sasha’s side quickly.

Crouching down, the two of them made their slow, silent way over to the birds nest. It was even bigger up close; each ‘twig’ of the nest easily being the size of Anne’s arm. For a brief moment, she wondered if it was even possible for the two of them to push the nest over the edge, before burying her doubts.

If it was impossible, it wasn’t like they were in any worse condition for trying.

Squatting down next to her, Sasha motioned for Anne to be quiet, before raising three fingers. In a wordless mime, she lowered the first one, and shook her head towards the bird.

Anne nodded.

She could feel a sweat starting to break out on her face as she breathed quietly, her body already anticipating a coming fight and injecting adrenaline into her veins in preparation. She felt hot. A glance over at Sasha told her, by the determined look in her eye, that she was feeling the same.

Another finger lowered. One remained.

Anne swallowed the spit that was accumulating in her mouth. She briefly wondered if there was anything in her bag that could help them here. A musical instrument, or a firework or something, but dismissed the thought. She already knew there wasn’t.

And then the count hit zero.

Standing up, Sasha took a deep breath, and then an ear-piercing screech tore its way through the air. Following her hastily, Anne did the same, adding her voice to the sudden noise.

And to their incredible luck, the sounds of their screams echoed off the walls and roof of the cave, bouncing and amplifying the cacophony until it seemed like there was not just two girls shouting, but an entire chorus of desperate schoolgirls. It was enough to make Anne’s ears ring, an omnipresent wave of noise that immediately awakened the beast in front of them.

Twisting awake immediately, the bird stumbled back in confusion; its great wings unfurled to stabilize itself as it jumped quickly out of the nest. A gust of wind threatened to throw the girls to the ground, but they stood firm. In confusion, the animal continued to twist and turn, fear present in its eyes until Sasha took initiative again, slapping it in the foot with a large stick.

Recoiling, the bird turned around and spread its wings; falling more than flying out of the cave.

“It worked.” Anne said.

Turning around, she locked onto to Sasha, “It worked!”

Sasha was already pushing her shoulder against the nest, her entire bodyweight colliding with the wood. “Of course it did, now get pushing! That things not gonna be gone long!”

“Oh, right!”

Gripping a particularly strong branch, Anne threw her weight in alongside Sasha. And to her amazement, the nest started to move, inch by inch, towards the cliff edge. And then she noticed something odd. Something white, and round.

“Eggs…” She said softly.

“Eggs!” She shouted, recoiling away and bringing the nest to a complete stop.

“Anne!” Sasha replied, frustrated, “what are you doing?”

Waving her arms, Anne shook her head, “Sasha, we can’t destroy this nest, there are eggs in it!”

“…so?”

“So? That bird is a mother! It just wants to protect its babies, how can we possibly destroy them?”

Sasha grit her teeth, “They’re just a bunch of eggs, Anne.”

“Just a bunch of eggs? Sasha, this is a family of birds! I didn’t agree to this.” 

There was some part of Anne that recognized the ridiculousness of this. But when she saw the eggs, not as they were, but as what they represented; a family of small chicklets and their caring mother, she couldn’t bring herself to harm them. How cruel would it be, to tear a child away from its mother?

“You used to eat eggs by the dozen back home.”

“That was different!”

Stopping herself, Sasha ran a hand through her hair. “They’re just a bunch of eggs. The bird will lay new ones, probably.”

Anne returned in kind, “I just…don’t feel comfortable about this anymore. When it was empty, it was fine, because nothing was getting hurt…”

“Nothing is getting hurt! Anne, this is ridiculous, we need to get back pushing, now!”

“But that bird probably only made a nest up here because it was safe. Because she wanted to care for her little chicks.”

“They’re just eggs, Anne!”

“I’m not okay with this!”

“I don’t car…”

A gust of powerful wind cut Sasha off; strong enough this time to send the two of them sprawling across the cave floor. Anne let out a groan as she tumbled painfully backwards, eventually rolling along her side until she came to a complete stop.

Looking up from the ground, the first thing she noticed was the gigantic avian looming over her; a row of teeth somehow protruding along the sides of its beak and the kind of hatred that only a mother can feel glowing from its eyes.

Hastily rising to her feet, she glanced over at Sasha. Like her, she was frozen in place, staring up at the monster about to bite them in half. Twisting its head sideways, the stork stared deeply into the terrified girl’s souls.

“A…Anne?” Sasha said quietly.

“Y…yes?”

“I think now might be a good time to run.”

“Can I scream?” Anne asked.

“I’m going to.”

Twisting on the heels of her feet, Anne heard a blood-curdling scream which she knew meant that it was fine for her to start screaming as well. Much like before, the sound bounced around the cavern, but this time, it only added to the sense of danger and panic that had suddenly descended from the sky, the noise encasing them like a cage.

Scanning her surroundings quickly (and narrowly avoiding tripping over a giant frog bone,) Anne locked on to her two choices. She could retreat back down the mountain, and give up on her quest, or she could rush for the other side of the tunnel, and continue her ascent despite the difficulty of return.

Skidding along the ground just as the bird lunged at her; Anne made her choice and made for the descent.

Only for a hand to reach out from next to her and grab her wrist, pulling her aside and putting her on a new path.

“Towards the top, Anne, go!” Sasha shouted, spinning around to face the stork.

There was barely any time for Anne to even move though, before the stork lunged forward again, driving its beak into the centre of Sasha’s chest. The impact was enough to send her rolling away again; scraping against the hard stone floor as the breath was driven from her body and struggled to return.

The ground shook as the bird took a step closer to Sasha, and Anne reacted quickly, picking up a large stone from the ground.

Flinging it, the rock bounced harmlessly off the side of the Stork while Anne waved her arms dramatically. “Hey! Over here, bird brain! Get away from her!”

Lolling its neck over to Anne, who was closer to it than Sasha anyway, the bird let out a screech and stabbed its beak forward again. Anne barely leapt out of the way as it slammed a crater into the ground.

Slipping between its legs, Anne bee-lined towards Sasha. Thanks to a healthy mix of fear and adrenaline, she was already on her feet and hurrying towards the tunnel entrance herself when Anne saddled up beside her.

“Go! Go! Don’t look back.” Sasha said, looking back herself.

The screech of the bird echoed around them; multiplying their terror exponentially as they rushed towards safety. Taking Sasha’s advice to heart, Anne ran straight as an arrow as the gigantic bird loomed over them; taking careful aim. They were both aware that a single, well aimed strike could mean the end of them.

Slowing, just slightly, to glance over her shoulder, Sasha, too, acted on instinct as the great avian stabbed forward once again.

“Anne, watch out!” She shouted, tossing herself behind her at the last minute.

The force of Sasha’s body smashing into hers pushed Anne into the air but thankfully, through the threshold of the tunnel entrance and into the relative safety of the darkness. The two of them tumbled across the cave floor, adding bruises to their bruises, before rolling to a stop against the opposite wall.

The entire cavern shook as the bird slammed into the entrance. Its beak snapped hungrily as it bit at the air; finding nothing of substance. It let out another loud shriek as Anne and Sasha could only look on in terror. Sweat ran down their face as the bird finally pulled back, stole a glance into the tunnel with its eye lowered to the floor, and turned around to return to its nest.

The two girls sat silently for many minutes, panting. There were no words to say, not yet, and they simply needed to let the fear and power exit their bodies.

Eventually, Anne stood back up, inching towards the entrance before deciding better and turning around. Sasha, on the other hand, crawled over to the wall and leaned against it, still seated.

“That…that was too close.” Anne said.

“Closest we’ve gotten, yeah.” Sasha replied.

“You…uh…saved me.”

Smiling, Sasha shook her head, perhaps confused. “Of course I did. Why wouldn’t I?”

A sense of gratitude started to grow in Anne’s stomach, but it was hard to overpower the guilt that immediately settled itself in there.

“S…Sasha, you’re…you’re bleeding!” Anne shouted, covering her mouth as she spoke. Alternating waves of fear, panic and regret started to bounce through her chest as she watched the few, dark red droplets fall to the ground behind Sasha.

“Huh? Oh. I guess I am.” Sasha said, tapping her back and staring at the red coating covering her hand.

“How…how bad is it? Quick, take off your shirt, let me see.”

“I’m not taking my shirt off, Anne.” Sasha said, shifting her weight slightly and groaning in pain as her body disagreed, “The bird just took a little chunk out of me, I’ll be fine.”

Carefully, Anne walked closer, her hands rubbing against themselves nervously. What…what do you do in this kind of situation? Bandage it? Bandage it with what, they didn’t have a first aid kit. Mud? Didn’t Marcy say mud was really bad at some point, Anne couldn’t remember. They couldn’t even clean it. Well, Anne did have a bottle of water with her, but not enough to help!

God, if only Marcy was here, she’d know what to do.

“Can…can you get up?” Anne asked.

Sasha stared up at her for a moment, before nodding. Gritting her teeth, she slid up the wall behind her; leaning on it nearly entirely as she stumbled to her feet. Upon reaching her full length, Sasha smiled unconvincingly as she gripped the wall tightly. Wobbling, she nodded again, “See? Perfectly fine.”

“No, you’re not! We…we need to get back to camp.” Anne said, moving closer and attempting to grab Sasha’s hand.

With practiced swiftness, Sasha pushed her away, gritting her teeth. “No! I’m fine! I don’t need your help, Anne! I’m…I’m…” Sasha took a deep, quivering breath, before pushing herself off the wall and standing up straight. “See?”

“I…I guess.”

Soaking in the silence for a moment too long, Sasha sighed, “I…appreciate your help, Anne. But just right now, I can handle this. I don’t need you dotting over me, you don’t need to see me like…this.”

Those words invigorated the feelings of guilt rampaging through Anne; their power multiplying until tears were starting to spring into her eyes. She’d gotten her best friend hurt! It was her own weakness that hurt Sasha and she was just so kind and forgiving towards her. She was so nice!

“No, I’m sorry!” Anne wailed.

“Anne…”

“If…If I’d just pushed the nest over the edge, none of this would have happened! You’d still be fine!”

“Anne.”

“This is all my fault!”

“Anne!”

“Huh?”

“Calm down. I don’t need you panicking right now.” Sasha said bluntly, before leaning against the wall behind her.

“I’m…I’m just so sorry…”

“Yeah. Try and remember this for the next time you don’t listen to me.”

Taking a deep breath, Anne ran her fingers through her hair; catching leaves that she didn’t even realize were trapped there. Looking down shamefully, Anne shuffled over to the opposite wall and started leaning as well. From the entrance to the tunnel, both of them could still hear the stork scratching away; searching for a way in.

“So…what do we do now?” Anne asked, still not looking at her friend.

Sasha was silent for a moment longer; but Anne couldn’t tell if it was because of pain or contemplation.

“We…keep going up.”

“You up for that?”

“I’ll be fine, Anne.”

“Alright then.” Anne said, pushing herself free and stretching her bruises before stepping forward. “Let’s head off.”

Sasha was still quiet, until, “Actually, Anne…”

Grunting as she pushed herself off the wall, Sasha smiled. “Why don’t you head back down to camp; make sure that Marcy is okay? Once the bird calms down, just sneak back through the cavern. I’ll finish this all up myself and then head down later. That cool?”

“What, why? You said this was dangerous, that we needed to stick together!” Anne replied.

Spinning around quickly, Sasha spread her arms and motioned to her damaged body. Through the tatters and the cuts it had gathered throughout the day, the bruises and scrapes were clear as day to anyone looking.

“Why? Anne, look at me! Twice now you’ve screwed up, and twice now I’ve needed to bail you out! I’m not going to wait for a third accident that gets either of us killed! I thought you were someone I could rely on, someone I could trust to do the right thing when I needed her to.”

Pulling up her remaining sleeve, Sasha rubbed her arm tentatively. “But look what’s happened! Clearly…clearly I was wrong.”

“You’ve disappointed me, Anne.”

A knife sliced through Anne’s pride like warm butter. But instead of a dull burn; like the guilt she had been feeling, this one burned like a fire that quickly spread to her mouth. A furious and quick anger that she could barely catch with her tongue before it sprang free.

“Now…now hang on! This was all your idea in the first place!”

“So? You agreed, Anne. We need to climb this mountain.”

“Not about that! About…about everything else. It was your idea to try and climb that rocky slope, not mine! I said we should find another way. It was your idea to wake the bird. And both times, it nearly got us killed. This is all your fault! I never wanted to climb the rocks, I never wanted to destroy the nest. How am I responsible?”

Stomping over, Sasha grabbed Anne by the cuff of her shirt, and pulled her off balance. Legs crumbling, Anne found herself being completely held up by Sasha’s strength. “I’m keeping you safe!”

“By having me fight a giant bird? By making me fall down a cliff?”

“That was your fault! If you had just done what I ordered you to do…”

“My fault? They were your ideas!”

“That you screwed up!”

“If you had just listened to me…”

“If I had just listened to you, we’d still be back at camp, waiting for Marcy, and getting nothing done!”

“Well, maybe waiting for Marcy was what we should have done, because she’d have agreed that all your plans are stupid!”

Sasha was quiet for a moment, before letting Anne drop. She took a deep breath, and after approximately ten seconds had passed, she turned around. “Go back to the camp, Anne.”

“Fine! I didn’t want to get caught up in your next dumb plan anyway.”

Spinning towards the exit, Anne stopped as the bird bent down and glanced into the tunnel; its eye eclipsing the entire exit. Upon seeing that its prey was still around, the bird returned to stomping around furiously, doing anything it could to pry its way into the narrow tunnel and consume them.

“Uh…”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, I need to leave first.” Sasha said, waving her hand dismissively. “I’ll see you back at the camp, Anne. Where we can discuss your ‘unhelpful’ words.”

Leaning back against the wall, Anne slowly slide downwards until she landed comfortably on her butt. Closing her eyes, she could hear the sounds of the bird still furiously trying to get in. But closer, and louder, than that, was the soft crunching of Sasha’s shoes on the stone floor as she walked away into the darkness of the tunnel, leaving Anne alone.

Taking a deep breath, she seethed in her own anger. This wasn’t her fault! None of this was her fault, it couldn’t be.

Sasha was putting them in danger. Putting herself in danger. Because she was too stubborn to admit that maybe her ‘friends’ had a point. God forbid that she might actually be wrong about something for once; no, Sasha was always right, didn’t you know? She always had the best plans, she always had the best words. She always knew exactly how to make you agree.

Anne was sick of her compliments. She didn’t want to be told how brave she was, she wanted to be heard!

And yet…

Seeds of doubt were already blossoming inside Anne’s mind.

Sasha was just doing the best with what they knew. Who’s to say that Anne’s ideas were any better, or that Sasha’s were any worse? They had no way of knowing until they backfired. If there had been no other way up, they would have wasted time. If the bird had been awake on their descent, they would be trapped. Sasha’s suggestions had merit.

But still… Anne would feel a lot more comfortable if her friend at least took her suggestions in mind when considering things too. Was that too much to ask? That Sasha at least hear her case; at least let her consider their options for herself?

Probably not.

And in the end…

Anne’s arms hurt. In fact, her entire body hurt. As she slid up the wall back to her feet, her bruises flared across her flesh like lightning bolts; arcing between points of impact and leaving behind a fiery brand that made her wince. Every movement was difficult. She wished she could stay on the ground.

And she’d gotten the best of it. Sasha had thrown herself into the same danger that she was expecting Anne to face; and borne the brunt of it herself. The injuries that Anne had gained were but a puddle to the ocean of abuse that Sasha had endured on her behalf.

Sasha just wanted to keep her safe. How could anything she do be wrong when she was just trying to keep Anne, trying to keep her friends, safe?

Anne didn’t know what to think. She didn’t know who was right, or who was wrong. In a way, she envied Sasha for being able to make the hard decisions. For her ability to be so confident that she was correct. But right now…

Behind her, the bird had long since grown silent; perhaps returning to rest. But that didn’t factor into Anne’s decision at all.

She knew that Sasha needed her friend.

Gritting her teeth, Anne followed deeper through the tunnel, in pursuit of her BFF.

The tunnel showed no signs of ending as Anne walked. It even started to twist and turn on itself, layering itself as she climbed ever upwards. It wasn’t until she was panting that she realized that the air had started to grow thin around her. How long had the two of them even been travelling? Hours? It had to have been hours, of course they were getting closer to the summit.

“Sasha!” Anne called, for the hundredth time, hoping that this time, Sasha would hear her and reply. No luck, though, as the smell of…snow, yes, snow, started to creep into her senses. Had she always been shivering? Had it always been this cold?

Just how high up was she?

As if to answer her question, the tunnel came to an abrupt end. A gateway of light assaulted Anne’s vision, causing her flinch. It was far brighter than the phone flashlight she’d been using to light her way. Emerging from the cave, Anne took a frosty breath. Finally, she was free from the stale, unmoving air of the earth.

Looking around, Anne froze in awe.

Sasha was right. Dear God, had Sasha been right.

She could see everything.

Through the white billows of breath escaping from her mouth, she had a view of the entire valley.

She had seen a similar view when she first arrived; but that felt so long ago to her despite being a mere four days, and this, at the precipice of precipices, made it feel so inferior.

From here, the valley looked like nothing more than an unruly garden, filled with appropriately sized insects simply living their tiny lives. The great rotwoods (as Marcy had named them,) that stretched so far above them, could barely hope to match Anne here.

The river near their camp let off a brilliant spray as it rushed onwards, sending not only sparkles, but rainbows above and beyond the tips of the trees. Rainbows that were joined by the beautiful rays of the sun as it illuminated the land, sending warmth to the cold earth. The greenery, as well, made Anne’s jaw drop. She had expected it to look sickly, look grimey, but that was only the view from below. Here, looking down, the jungle formed a sheet of greens, and yellows, and pinks, and purples and every colour Anne could name, all mixing together into a tapestry of the world; nature at its fullest, bearing all it could to Anne alone.

And yet…

She saw no people.

She saw no village, no smoke, no roads. No farms needing tending, no castle upon a hill, nothing.

They were alone.

Tearing her eyes away from the view, Anne quickly focused on the only thing standing out from the field of white; a small hint of pink, green and yellow that signified her friend, similarly mystified.

Trudging over to her, Sasha spun around hastily and grabbed her spear, before relaxing. Seeing that it was just Anne, she looked back over the jungle, and held a clump of snow over one of her particularly bad bruises. She seemed…calmer, now. As if the completion of her goal, as if the execution of a job well done, had invigorated her spirit.

“It’s disgusting, isn’t it?” Sasha said, eventually, perhaps more saddened than she’d like Anne to see.

Anne would be lying if she said she wasn’t taken a little aback by this. Were….were they even looking at the same scenic vista? The same sight?

Anne didn’t have a response.

“I thought I told you to go back to the camp.” Sasha eventually added.

“I…had to apologize first.” Anne replied, rubbing the back of her head.

“Oh?”

Sitting down (the long climb had exhausted her, of course,) Anne looked up at her friend, “Listen, I know you’re just trying to keep us safe. And I appreciate it, I really do. I’m sorry that I…screwed up your plans and got us hurt.”

“You should be, but I forgive you.”

“I’m not done.”

Sasha raised her eyebrow.

“And we both said some…hurtful things back there. I’m sorry for those too.”

“Mhm.”

“It’s just…sometimes…I feel like…you don’t listen to me.”

“Anne, that’s…”

“And I’m not saying that I have the answers, okay? Or that my plans are any better than yours. But I’d just like you to…consider them, sometimes. And I think Marcy feels the same.”

Sasha was quiet for a moment, and it was clear to Anne that she was thinking deeply. Contemplating herself, perhaps? Their relationship? Anne had no idea. Since she had received no indication that she should stop, Anne decided to keep going, to keep airing out her grievances. If Sasha wasn’t willing to hear her now, at the journey’s end, when would she?

“I just…I didn’t want to do the things you wanted me to do. I didn’t want to crush those eggs, even though I know how silly it seemed. I didn’t want to leave Marcy behind. And…and even before that. If you had let me go home when I wanted, back on Earth, we wouldn’t even be here. I never would have stolen the music box in the first place.”

“…What, so you think this was my fault?”

The question only hung in the air for a brief moment, but to Anne, it felt like the weight of the world had suddenly been thrown at her.

“Wha? No, I…I didn’t say that…”

“Helping friends out is just what friends do, Anne.” Sasha said, cutting her off rudely. “If your friend needs to borrow your pencil, you give it to them. If they need you to a steal a crummy music box for them, you do it. And if they ask you politely, to help them climb a mountain, you do it without complaining.”

“I…I know that, but I just…”

“Do you not want to help your friend, Anne?”

“No, no, I do, I just…want you to listen to me a little more. Consider what I want, ya know?”

“Are you still on that? Move on, Anne, come on.”

“But, I just…”

“It’s not cute anymore, Anne.”

“I’m not trying to be cute, I just…”

“No, we’re done here. End of discussion. Got it?”

“I…” Anne started, before looking away. She could feel the pressure of Sasha’s words pushing down on her like a literal weight, and try as she might, she couldn’t find the strength to throw them off. Maybe…maybe she was wrong. Sasha did usually have a track record of being savvier than her.

“I understand.” Anne said.

“Good. Now come on, we’re nearly done here.”

“Nearly?”

Sasha scoffed and pointed her thumb over her shoulder. “Duh. We’re only looking at half the valley. We gotta work our way around to the other side if we want to see the rest. Who knows what could be there?”

Anne slapped her forehead. Of course, that made sense. To think, she’d nearly left early.

Trekking through the snow, Anne felt like there was a growing tension between the two of them, one that she didn’t like. It was almost physical in its presence, yet she was hesitant to broach the topic. Coming across a narrow pathway with a steep drop on one side, and the stone wall on the other (coincidently, the same wall that was blocking their vision of the full valley,) Sasha put her arm out, stopping Anne.

“Hey, Anne, check this out.”

Watching Sasha inch closer to the edge, Anne raised her arm, only to lower it again as Sasha paused. Lifting her leg, Sasha drove it deep into the snow next to her, and pulled away quickly.

The disconnected, freshly loosened snow quickly tumbled down the incline, colliding and mixing with more and more snow until the entire side of the mountain was engulfed in a wave of ice and snow that eclipsed everything underneath it.

“Avalanche.” Anne said simply.

“Pretty cool, huh? Makes you feel strong. C’mon, give it a try.” Sasha said, motioning for Anne to come closer.

“Oh, I…I don’t think this is sa…”

“No, seriously. We both need to destress a little after that whole fiasco. C’mon, throw some snow down the mountain. It’ll make you feel better.”

Anne cocked her head sideways, grimacing, but quickly chased after her friend and took a place next to her. Her smiling face put most of Anne’s fears to rest and with one quick kick, Anne broke a section of the packed snow tumbling down the mountain, triggering another mini-avalanche.

She couldn’t deny that it was kind of calming. Watching the pure white snow slide away; it felt like she was watching her worries and concerns slip away with it. Watching them become smaller and smaller until they were nothing more than little dots crashing against the stony foot of the mountain.

A slap on the back caused Anne to shout in pain, mostly from her bruises. Sasha quickly withdrew her hand, looking guilty. “Sorry. But still, pretty cool, right?”

Letting out a short laugh, Anne kicked down again. “Yeah, it’s kind of coo-AH!”

Only this time, the snow beneath her broke away as well.

The surprised shout had barely left Anne’s mouth before her arm instinctively flailed backwards, clutching onto the first thing it found. In less than half a second, the ground beneath Anne’s feet had entirely vanished, leaving her hanging in the air as Sasha gripped her tightly.

“Woah! Careful there, Anne.” Sasha said, sweeping her other hand down to grab Anne better and pull her back onto the solid ground. “I guess the ground here is a little unstable. You should be more careful.”

Stumbling to her feet, Anne backpeddled a few more steps and let out the sudden breath she was holding. “Haha, yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it; I still caught you, didn’t I?”

The sound of crunching snow filled Anne’s ear as Sasha walked over to her. “Now come on, no more distractions.”

And yet, no sooner had the words left Sasha’s mouth before the entire mountain shook beneath them. Thrown off balance, Sasha coped a faceful of snow as she fell to the ground, with Anne faring little better by landing on her behind. To make matters worse, a great deal of snow was tossed towards them as the struggled to get back to their feet.

Wiping the freezing water from her eyes, Anne quickly located the source of the tremor.

“Um…Sasha…we have a problem.”

Pulling her friend to her feet, Sasha quickly clued on as well.

The stork was back.

Having landed just a few steps away from the cave entrance, seemingly having simply flown up the side of the mountain, the stork preened its wings nonchalantly for a second, confident in its strength. Focusing on the girls afterwards, it let out a loud, protracted screech, the cold weather causing its breath to flow outwards in a great white cloud like a dragon breathing fire on its helpless victims.

“Again? Seriously!” Sasha shouted, “Why won’t it leave us alone?”

“We did try to kill its children.”

“Shut up, Anne.”

Leaping backwards, Sasha motioned for Anne to follow. “C’mon, time to run again.”

“Right!”

Swallowing the pain of throwing her body back into action, Anne chased after her friend, the monster behind them in quick pursuit. Anyone could see what Sasha’s plan was; Anne didn’t even need to ask. Sprint around the exterior of the mountain, loop it completely, and then jump down back into the cave to safety.

And while they were doing that, take a look at the rest of the valley, just to save time.

But Anne heard Sasha trip before she saw it. The snow around her plumed upwards as she stumbled; clearly more out of ‘it’ than Anne was. Wasting no time, she was already pushing herself back to her knees when Anne caught up to her.

Helping her back to her feet took only a couple of seconds (Anne would never have just left her) but it was precious seconds they couldn’t afford to waste. No sooner than she had erected herself did Sasha need to brutally tackle Anne to the ground again as the beak of the Stork swiped over them horizontally.

The girls didn’t wait getting back up as the Stork recoiled; its beak aching from when it had collided with the stone face of the mountain.

A loud crack echoed through the air, like the bones of a great titan were snapped in half. So great was the noise that even the stork paused in confusion, pulling its head back above its body as the mountain groaned in agony. Focusing on the source, Anne felt her blood run colder than the snow beneath her feet.

“Sasha! We have a problem!”

“Yeah, the giant man-eating bird!”

“Not that!” Anne said, pointing upwards.

Following her direction, Sasha quickly clued in as well.

In its struggles to attempt to devour the girls, the stork had shaken the mountain itself, detaching a large amount of gathered snow from near the summit. Snow that was now barrelling towards them faster than a hungry animal, gathering more mass and speed by the second as it clumped together and merged with the snow further down.

It only took Sasha a second to decide on an action.

“Back to the cave! Anne, now!”

“What, past the bird?” Anne replied, backpeddling.

“We’ll be buried alive if we stay out here!”

Running up beside Anne, Sasha paused for a moment to steel her nerves. “I’ll run around the right side, you run around the left. That way, only one of us has to deal with being attacked, got it?”

“G…got it.” Anne replied, failing to think of a better plan herself.

With the Stork bearing down on them, it took no time at all for the two forces to collide. Her shoes skidding beneath her, Anne leapt to the left, kicking off the stone wall to temporarily get her feet out of the slowing snow and speed past the angry beast.

At least, that was the plan. Instead, the Stork simply thrust its wings out, slamming both of the girls at the same time. Anne was lucky, she was simply thrown into the rocky, rumbling wall, and recovered quickly as she rushed for the exit.

Sasha, on the other hand, was thrown through the air, sliding across the ground until she reached the edge of the cliff. There was a brief second of peace, before the outcropping she’d landed on broke away, dropping her over the edge; her scream acting like perfect punctuation to the act. In a stroke of luck, her hand seized the remaining ice, slipping fast.

“Sasha!” Anne shouted, stopping immediately and rushing back to her.

Sliding under the Stork’s legs, Anne managed to grab Sasha’s hand just before she slipped off the mountain completely. Hanging over the edge, Anne was the only thing keeping Sasha from tumbling down to her certain doom.

“Anne!” Sasha shouted.

Anne’s grip slipped slightly as the earth started to rumble around her. The weight of the oncoming collapse was starting to drive shards of ice into her skin, both literally and metaphorically. And to her left, the stork paused momentarily as it felt the vibrations, contemplating escape, before realizing that it could simply eat them and then fly away to safety.

But nothing was going to stop her from keeping her friend safe.

“J…just hold on! Don’t let go!” Anne said.

“I’m slipping!” Sasha said back, the weight of her body, combined with the water on her hands, dragging her down.

“Don’t worry. You’ll think of something! You always think of something!”

It was hard to focus, but Sasha did her best. Internally, she categorized the problems in terms of immediate threat. Going over every possible way to get the both of them out of there.

She saw only one solution and she hated it.

“Anne…you need to let me go.”

“What?”

“If you let go of me right now, you can still get to the cave before the avalanche hits. I’ll fall, make a bunch of noise, attract the stork over to me. It should get you enough time to get to safety.”

“I’m not letting go of you!”

“Listen to me! Marcy needs you. I…we know that you were always the one that takes care of her. She’s not going to survive out here alone. If the both of you can somehow…get home…I’m willing to embrace this fall.”

“No!” Anne shouted, dropping her tennis racket so that she could grab Sasha with her other hand as well. Leaning dangerously over the edge, all Anne could hear was the rushing of her own blood in her ears; loud enough to drown out the stomps and shakes.

“Anne…”

“No! Sure, Marcy needs me, but you know what? I need you! And you need her! The only way we’re going to get through this is if we work together! If we support each other! That’s what friends are for! Nobody is going to sacrifice themselves to save the others any more, got it?”

Reaching down, Anne actually summoned the strength to give Sasha a slap across the cheek.

“So stop panicking, and actually think of a plan to get us both out of here!”

Being in her position not two days ago, Anne knew firsthand the kind of relief and hope that no doubt just washed over Sasha as she realized that Anne wasn’t going to abandon her. The tiniest of glimmers of hope that everything was going to turn out alright.

And yet, despite the danger, despite the angry, bloodthirsty avian bearing down on her, despite the oncoming avalanche that threatened to engulf them, despite the weight of Sasha’s body slowly slipping out of her grasp, all Anne could focus on was the view in front of her.

She could see their camp from here, in a small clearing. She could see the path they took to reach the mountain. She could see the rocky slope that had nearly killed them earlier.

And she saw the tree that had saved their life, wedged in place to stop the incoming rockslide that had threatened to sweep them away. That had protected them from the worst of the mountain’s attack.

And an idea formed. An insane plan, but perhaps their only way out.

“Wait…Sasha! I have an idea! But you have to trust me!”

“What?”

“I need to let you go, we’re not in the right place!”

“What? Anne, you just said…”

“You’ll be fine, trust me!”

“…” Sasha shook her head rapidly, before gritting her teeth. “…I…I can still think of something! I can still get us both out of here!”

“Sasha, I need to act now! Do you have anything at all?”

There wasn’t even a moment of hesitation, there was no time to second guess her actions, “…Fine. Do it!” Sasha shouted.

Anne took a deep breath. Once she let go of Sasha, she’d only have a few seconds to do what she needed to. And if she failed, both of them were going to face the full strength of the mountain as the ice and snow bore down on them. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the stork quickly approaching, murder in its eyes. Too far to her right to be a part of the plan. And directly behind it, the rapidly moving avalanche that would consume them both if she failed.

A cold sweat, made colder by the wind, swept over Anne.

And then she let go.

Sasha let out a scream as she slipped over the edge, even more snow cushioning her fall, but sliding away beneath her and carrying her down the mountain, so steep was the incline that no person could hope to remain stable on it.

And back on the solid ground, Anne lunged to the side; placing herself directly between the bird and the edge of the cliff. But more importantly, putting the bird between her and the avalanche. Gripping her racket, she waved it threateningly. All she needed was one good stab; one good attack.

From the bird to her.

Leaping forward, the stork reared its head backwards and, with far more force than it was willing to use on the rocky ground, stabbed forward at Anne; who ducked out of the way at the last possible second. The hole the stork left in the snow at the spot Anne was standing seconds ago was nearly as large as Anne was, but more importantly, it broke the ground.

Like a foot pushing through the snow and causing a mini-avalanche, the beak sent cracks and breaks through the loose snow, sending them sliding down the mountain as well as they detached from the cliff. Anne was thrown off her feet as the ground disappeared beneath her, and watched with joy as the bird was caught in the same trap.

It tried to flap its wings to regain stability, but Anne rushed forward, gripping its left wing and forcing it open; digging her feet into the ground and leaning her back against it with all her strength. “Oh no, you don’t!” She shouted.

Just in time too, as the actual avalanche slammed into the back of the stork; which immediately dug its talons into the snow beneath it remain upright. Not that it was enough to stop its descent, but it prevented the colossal creature from being swept underneath.

With the first part of her plan done, Anne scanned the snow ahead of her for a hint of yellow, or blue, or something to indicate where her friend was. Tumbling head over heels, Anne quickly saw her, and called out in desperation.

Perhaps inspired by a mix of disbelief and adrenaline, Sasha righted herself quickly, and leapt into the path of the beast; slamming into its chest. Learning quickly, she grabbed the bird’s right wing and forced it open as well; distributing the force more evenly and stabilizing the struggling animal.

“This is insane!” Sasha shouted.

“I know!” Anne replied.

“SCREE!” Added the stork, too busy remaining upright to try and attack its enemies.

In wonder, Anne and Sasha watched as the avalanche eclipsed them, rushing down their left and right as the bird bore the brunt of nature’s chilly wrath and split the avalanche in two. From beneath the wings, snow flowed up to Anne’s knees, but despite this, they moved down at a reasonable, manageable pace.

It wasn’t until the avalanche started to slow around them that Anne glanced back over at Sasha. There was a mad look on her face, one borne of pure disbelief, but it told Anne everything she needed to know. Snapping her fingers, she captured Sasha’s attention. “On three, we make a break for it, okay? This thing still wants to kill us, remember?”

“R…right!”

Counting down perhaps a little too quickly, Anne and Sasha jumped forward into the flowing snow in front of them. Without the support of the two girls, the stork’s wings quickly closed in on themselves. As it tripped under its own weight and became (temporarily) trapped under the snow, Anne and Sasha slid down the mountain under their own power.

By this point, the snow had turned to rocks, which made the final leg of their journey down painful; but certainly much less painful then getting buried alive under a kilometre of snow. Skidding down the rocky slope, Anne gave the ever helpful tree a quick wave as they hit rock bottom, finally stopping on solid ground.

Looking around, Anne was amazed that they’d formed a perfect ‘V’ out of the snow, with them smack dab in the middle of it.

She felt light. Warm. The air smelled fresher, felt thicker down here, and carried with it a hint of melting snow.

Looking over at Sasha, Anne tried to help her up, only to fail as Sasha stared forward blindly.

“Yo, you hurt?” Anne asked.

Sasha just shook her head.

“C’mon, lemme just help you up.” Anne added, bending over to grab Sasha’s hand and pull her to her feet. She stumbled, shell shocked, as her head finally finished rebooting and snapped her back to reality.

“Oh, uh, your…your back is all cut up now.” Anne said.

“Yeah, so is yours.” Sasha said, still not entirely there. Scanning around, Sasha could only shake her head slowly. “Anne, that was…that was incredible!”

“Oh, I mean, thanks?”

“No, no, I mean it, that was amazing! Anne, you saved my life! Our lives!”

“Well, yeah, I, hehe.” Anne said, blushing.

“Seriously, Anne, good work.”

“No, I couldn’t have done it without you. I wouldn’t have even been inspired to do it if you hadn’t made me climb this slope earlier. It’s really all you.”

Walking a few feet and pulling her tennis ratchet out of the snow (she had dropped it at some point during their escape,) Anne twirled around on her heels as she motioned towards the woods.

“Come on, let’s get out of here. I think it’s time we headed back to camp and checked on Marcy.”

Returning to herself again, Sasha watched as Anne led the way towards the edge of the trees, still encouraging her to follow. In a sense, she was legitimately impressed with Anne’s plan. Anne had always been, to her, a bit of a dense bonehead; the kind of person she had to constantly look out for and protect from bullies and such; and in return, she protected Marcy. To see her rise to the occasion had been a true surprise. How could she ever have doubted her?

And she was immediately hit by a deep sense of guilt too. Which was strange, because guilt was not something that Sasha usually felt. In fact, she could probably count on one hand the amount of times she’d felt guilty about something. Was that bad? She didn’t want to think too deeply about it if it could be bad. Either way, Sasha placed her hands on Anne’s shoulders, both of them wincing this time.

As much as she hated to admit she was wrong, she couldn’t deny her feelings.

“Anne, listen, I’m…sorry too, alright?” Sasha said, as if she couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth, “Because, maybe you’re right. If you think that I should listen to you more often, I’ll…try to, okay? But I still get to make the final decision. I’m still the one that decides what we do, okay?”

“That’s all I want.” Anne replied.

“Good. Then let’s get out of here. Unless…you have anything to say?”

“Nope.”

“Good, good. Let’s go then.”

“I just wish we’d gotten around to the other side. What if there was something there?”

Sasha waved her hand dismissively. “Eh, there’s probably nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Meanwhile, in a small tower just on the far side of the mountain, a similarly small inhabitant lowered his spyglass, his abode clearly visible from the mountainside.

“Another avalanche. Log it and send word to the captain. Spring may be starting early this year and that means we’ll be able to contact the capital for help sooner. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Putting the spyglass back to his eye, the creature furrowed his brow.

It was quite odd, actually, to have so many deluges in such a small time, especially in what should be the middle of winter. He considered sending the captain a recommendation that some of his men investigate the mountain for anything strange, before deciding against it. He knew they couldn’t spare the men, and the captain was unlikely to accept even if they could.

Still, raising the spyglass back to his eye, the stork was rarely this angry during mating season. He wondered what might have set it off.

Back at the camp, Anne and Sasha stumbled through the thick overgrowth into their safe haven; leaning heavily on each other for support. They both knew that the other was probably in just as much pain as they were, but felt that there was no point in asking about it. Besides, it built unity. A shared agony was something that anyone could bond over.

The fire was already burning as they focused on Marcy, who was quietly sketching out a number of, what appeared to be from a distance, maps onto pages from her book; to help the girls navigate around the bog.

“Oh, you’re back! How did the trek go?” Marcy said, not looking up from her book.

Sasha just let out a cough. Looking up, the smile on Marcy’s face dropped immediately. Besides their torn up clothes, Anne was pretty sure that she had a black eye in addition to her dozen other bruises, Sasha was stained with blood front and back, sticks and stones were tangled in both their hairs, and they were still drenched with water from the quickly melting snow that had attached itself to their bodies.

“That bad, huh?” Marcy said, standing up.

Sitting down and letting out a sigh of both pain and relief, Sasha smiled, “We did it though. We made it to the top.”

“And?”

“There’s nothing, dude. It’s all jungle, all the way to the horizon.” Sasha said, taking off her shoes and socks to finally let her feet breathe; but still holding them in the air so that they wouldn’t get covered in mud.

“Oh.” Marcy’s face dropped as she processed the news, before shaking her head rapidly to chase away the bad thoughts and returning to her usual optimism. “Well, that just means we need to travel if we want to find our first village.”

Sitting down next to Sasha, Anne lasted a good ten seconds before giving up and just falling backwards into the soft, welcoming mud. A moan of delight wafted through the air.

“Maybe…after you two rest a little though. You look like you’ve been through hell today. Either of you wanna tell me about it? I noticed you kind of…left me alone here.”

“Sorry about that, Mar-Mar. But Sasha wanted to get this done today.”

“Fine, fine. I understand. If it’s what Sasha wants. Now start talking, I bet you met all kinds of interesting creatures.” Marcy said, clutching her book to her chest like an overly excited child.

Sharing a glance, Anne and Sasha reluctantly told their friend everything that had gone down. They couldn’t bear to look at each other when they reached their argument in the cave, but the mood quickly lightened as Sasha praised Anne’s clever thinking and defeat of the Stork.

By the time they were done, the sun had finally set on the strange land they had found themselves in, and the wounds of the girls had healed enough that they could move around comfortably. Provided they didn’t need to actually do anything.

The fire crackled lightly as Anne stared into it; imaging a grand narrative between the smoke and the flame to entertain herself and pass the time. Lying on her back, with the mud in her hair, she watched as a moth (obviously one far larger than any she had seen on Earth) fluttered gently into the fire. In an instant, it was aflame, and rocketing into the sky spreading sparks and light until it disintegrated entirely under the heat. Morbid, Anne thought, but a fairly good end to her story, actually.

Sitting up, she groaned loudly as pain thundered through her body. A large crack signified that something had popped back into place, which she was thankful for, but also a new point of ache for her to worry about.

“Hey…Marcy?” Anne asked, tentatively.

“Yeah?”

“Can we…go to bed early tonight? My bones are all achey.” Anne said, looking glum.

“Sure thing, Anne! You just need to ask, it’s no big deal.”

Clapping her book closed, Marcy thumped her way over to the sleeping spot, and slid underneath Anne’s head. The soft embrace of her body felt like heaven on Anne’s sore neck.

Above them, Sasha walked closer as well. “Oh, I see how it is. When I say you should go to bed, you stay up all night. But when ANNE says to go to bed…” She began.

“Aw, come on, Sasha, you know it’s not like that. I was just in one of my moods, you know? I had to get my thoughts and theories down as soon as possible, before they flew out of my head. You know you’re still my bestie!”

Rubbing her arm, Sasha smiled, embarrassed, “Yeah…I know. I guess I’m just still a little on edge, I’ve got this ringing in my ear that won’t stop.”

Lying down, her head thumped into Anne’s chest just a little too hard, releasing a wheeze. “Come on, scootch over Marcy, I’m calling it in early too.”

“Coolio.”

Anne grunted as Sasha’s head pushed directly on one of her sore spots, but grit her teeth through it. She didn’t want to be rude.

Waiting several minutes for everyone to get comfortable, Anne twisted her neck up to look at Marcy.

“Hey, guys…”

Sasha groaned. “Are we gonna do this every night, Anne?”

“At least it’s not those ‘would you rather’ things she used to do at sleepovers.” Marcy added.

“Those are cool, shut up. Anyway,” Anne said, staring straight upwards, “do you think our parents have noticed we’re gone yet?”

“…We’ve been here for four days. Nearly five now.”

“Yeah.” Sasha said.

“Oh right. How long do you think it took for them to notice we were missing?”

There was a brief silence as Sasha and Marcy shared a glance, the obvious unspoken implication floating between them.

“I mean, they probably noticed you were missing immediately, Anne.” Sasha said, “We were on the way to your birthday party when we decided to steal the box. Plus, you’ve always been such an honest, straight edge; they know you’d never miss it intentionally.”

“Good point.” Anne replied, letting her thoughts drift to her mother. God, she was probably worried sick. She’d always been such a safe, careful carer; she wouldn’t even let Anne leave the car when they stopped for gas. It took nearly a month of convincing before she let Anne try out for the tennis team. Having Anne disappear might have just sent her straight into paranoia.

If only she could send a single message back; just some way to tell her that everything was going to be fine. That’s all she really wanted. Just some reassurance. Instead, she was probably hanging up ‘missing’ posters and trying to get the press to spread their disappearance to as many people as possible. She’d probably never stop.

Shaking her head, Anne stared down (or maybe up) at Marcy. “What about you, Marmar?”

“Well, I mean, you know my parents. They’d…they’d probably have noticed when I didn’t come home, right? Surely?”

“Yeah, of course.” Sasha replied, sounding decidedly unsure. “And once it got out that Anne and you were missing, my parents would have realized that I wasn’t home either.”

“Right. Honestly, they probably think we ran away together, for some reason. Odds are they’re just waiting for us to come back.”

“Yeah. That sounds right.” Anne said.

Resting her eyes for a bit, Anne pursued another chain of thought that spiralled from the first. “God, what are we gonna tell them if we…”

“When we.” Sasha corrected.

“When we get back home? They’ll probably think we’re repressing our memories or something.”

“I’d love to repress all of this, being honest.” Sasha said.

Marcy let out a scoff and, when she saw how it drew attention to her from the others, a sigh. “Man, I just don’t get you two.”

“What you mean?” Anne asked.

“I mean, how are you not loving this!”

“What?” The girls said in unison.

“We’ve been teleported to a fantastical new world, full of dangerous monsters and incredible vistas! We’re basically at the start of our own grand adventure! There are people I talk to online who would kill for something like this. I would kill for something like this! It’s a dream come true, I’ll never forget this.”

Anne raised her hand to stop her, but instead, stopped herself. There was something in her words that rang true. There was such passion, such love for the strange world they’d found themselves in that Anne couldn’t help but feel herself be swayed. Marcy felt so at home, who was Anne to try and tell her that she was wrong? Who was Anne to decide she wasn’t wrong herself?

“I… I mean, just take a look at the Amphipedia, it’s full of so many amazing things. Mushrooms that explode on touch, lizards that spit fire, birds as big as a castle! And think of all the things we haven’t even encountered yet, all the secrets we haven’t uncovered. We haven’t even met our first quest giver yet.”

“I nearly died today.” Sasha said, frankly.

“Well, no adventure is without risk. And just because you failed one quest, doesn’t mean that you should give up on the whole game. It just means you need to accept it again and keep trying! But come on, can either of you seriously look me in the eye and tell me that this isn’t great? That you don’t enjoy the wonder of the world around you, that you don’t crave what new thing we might see tomorrow?”

Groaning in pain as Anne and Sasha looked over at each other, they each separately considered what she was saying. Anne had never been one to seek out adventure in her normal life; that was obviously more of Marcy’s ideal, but she couldn’t deny that in the recent days, she had felt a sense of…triumph, perhaps?

“I…I guess it was kind of cool when Sasha saved my life.” Anne said slowly, gauging Sasha’s reaction.

“And when you saved mine.” She replied.

“Climbing that rocky slope? I just felt so…accomplished.”

“And riding down a freaking avalanche? Amazing!”

“And building this whole camp with your bare hands, Sasha, you’re a natural!”

“Oh, shut up, I totally am!”

“See? You do love it! I hope we never leave.” Marcy interjected, smiling widely.

Both of the girls sat up quickly, the mood in the air souring immediately. “Wow, wow, let’s not get out of hand, Marcy. Sure, this place isn’t…as bad as I thought, but we still want to get out of here, right?” Sasha said, voicing Anne’s opinion as well.

Marcy was quiet for a minute.

“Right?”

“…yeah. Of course. That’s what the heroes do in these stories, they save the day and then they…go home.”

“Good. Now if Anne is done with her daily musing, can we all go to bed now? My back hurts.”

“Sure.” Anne replied, “Just give Marcy a minute or two to extinguish herself again.”

“Wha?” Marcy said, looking down at her dress to see it had caught fire. “Aw man, again?” She said, patting it furiously.

“Anyway, good night, you two,” Anne finished.

“Night, Anne. Let’s see what tomorrow holds, together!” Marcy replied, to cap off the conversation and send them all into the realm of dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just how far is Anne willing to go to ensure the happiness of her friends? A simple lost phone quickly spirals into a fight for her life against one of the most mysterious creatures she's seen yet.  
> Next time, 'Screen Protector!' Watch for it.


	4. Screen Protector

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just how far is Anne willing to go to ensure the happiness of her friends? A simple lost phone quickly spirals into a fight for her life against one of the most mysterious creatures she's seen yet.

“Sasha! Sasha, wake up! Please!”

The comfortable world of dreams was hastily pulled away as Sasha woke up with a bang. Her whole body was shaking and she realized nearly immediately that it was because Anne was rocking her as hard as she could. She was still groggy from sleep and drowsy from the rude awakening, so her first instinct was to tell Anne to leave her alone, until the memories of the last week came back to her.

“Sasha! Hurry!”

Snapping her eyes open, Sasha winced as the light flooded her vision; Anne was nothing more than a blurry figure above her. Pushing her back, Sasha leapt to her feet, ready for action.

“I’m up! What’s going on, where’s the danger, where’s Marcy? Are you hurt, how are your hands?” Sasha said, slurring out her words.

In front of her, Anne was nearly panicking.

“Sasha, it’s terrible! Something really, really bad has happened, I need your help!”

Seeing that there was no immediate danger, Sasha rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “What’s wrong? Use your words, Anne.”

“It’s Marcy!”

Now that she thought about it, it was odd that she couldn’t see Marcy. A shard of fear embedded itself in her heart.

“Explain, now.” Sasha said, grabbing Anne roughly.

“We were out exploring, and we came across this weird egg, and I dared Marcy to eat it and now…now…”

“Now what?”

“She’s turned into a terrifying moth monster! L…look!” Anne shouted, pointing behind Sasha.

Turning around hastily, Sasha was immediately confronted with what she could only describe as an inhumane monster. It loomed over her, nearly nine feet tall, and was covered in thick, armour-like fur. Dripping claws sprouted from its hands, coated in a red substance that Sasha could only assume was human blood. Looking up at its compound, unfeeling eyes and gangly proboscis, Sasha felt that shard of fear blossom into a full on glacier of panic. The thing that had once been Marcy smiled down at her like a hungry predator, all humanity having been stripped out and replaced by the unfeeling, uncaring mind of a beast.

Reacting quickly, Sasha punched the moth in the stomach as hard as she possibly could. So hard that it was actually lifted into the air and stumbled off the log it was standing on. Colliding with the soft ground, the creature let out a groan of pain.

“Marcy!” Anne shouted, pushing past Sasha.

“Get back, Anne! It might still be danger…ous.”

Now that the creature was beneath her, wheezing in pain and rolling around in the mud clutching its stomach, and now that she had woken up just a little more, the ‘Moth’ monster suddenly looked a lot more human, and a lot less monster. Pulling her hoodie back, Marcy struggled to breathe as Anne kept her head out of the mud.

Confusion and fear quickly burst into anger.

“Marcy!” Sasha shouted, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Marcy could only gasp.

“Is…is this what you two think is funny? I was…” Sasha stopped herself before she said ‘scared,’ “worried about you! I thought you were gone!”

Seeing how her friend couldn’t defend herself, Anne spoke up in her stead, “It…it was just a little joke, you didn’t need to…”

“Punch her? What were you expecting? I thought I was being attacked by some freako monster!”

Anne looked away, “I mean, it was… it was still Marcy inside…”

“Don’t you two ever do something like that again. End. Of. Discussion.”

Standing there for a minute, Sasha quietly seethed in her anger before taking a deep breath and counting to ten. Walking over to Marcy, she offered her a hand up. “Come on, stop complaining. Me and Anne went through worse.”

Accepting the help now that she’d managed to breathe again, Marcy rose back to her feet, stopping for a moment to glance down at her outfit.

“Aw man, it’s all ruined. It’s covered in mud now.”

Now that the danger had passed, Sasha took a moment to ask the new questions rising to the forefront of her mind. “Where did you…get that?”

Having shed the school uniform that all three of them had worn, Marcy was now wearing a new suit of her own design. It was like a furry cloak that stretched around her body, starting at a hood made out of the head of a deceased moth. When flipped over, it covered the entire top of her head, and even drooping down over her eyes. Doing a small spin, Marcy smiled. “Like it? I made it myself.”

“How…”

“Anne and I came across this dead moth out in the jungle yesterday. And it made me start thinking; both of your uniforms are still kind of…destroyed from your mountain climb a couple days ago. So I stripped down…”

Anne nodded in confirmation when Sasha looked at her in confusion.

“And started making myself a new suit out of some Nephiliant wire. Pretty cool, huh? Only problem is, it’s a little warm and keeps…” Marcy paused as she noticed smoke rising up from near her feet, “catching on fire.”

Quickly stomping it out, Sasha glanced over at Anne. “And I take it you’re now wearing Marcy’s old uniform?”

“Yep.”

“So I’m the only one looking like a hobo.”

“Aw, c’mon, it’s not that bad.”

“Next one you make is mine.” Sasha said, simply, “now come on. I need to wash up anyway, you can clean your little…moth…monster…cosplay thing down at the river.”

Marcy just stood there as Sasha and Anne walked past her. A minute passed as they waited, until Sasha sighed. “You can’t walk, can you?”

Still clutching her stomach, Marcy smiled painfully. “Just…give me a minute. When did you get such a strong right hook?”

Looking at her hand, Sasha shrugged. “I don’t…I’m just as strong as I’ve always been. Right?”

“Right.” Anne replied.

After another few minutes of waiting for Marcy to recover from their mean prank’s consequences, the girls quickly arrived at the river that they had grown accustomed to. After running a quick check to ensure that there were no lampreys, giant leeches or murderous ladybugs (they were much larger here, and much more bloodthirsty,) Sasha motioned for the rest of them to settle in along the riverside.

Taking a little sip, Anne flinched as the water splashed up into her face. A few feet away, Marcy floated gently downstream, a streak of brown mud behind her but a serene look on her face.

Sitting down next to her, Sasha flipped her shirt off and started to clean, in a way that was also becoming increasingly familiar. Even she was smiling, despite the rude awakening she had received a moment ago. Maybe it was just something in the air, some spark of levity that had descended upon them, or perhaps the sunlight reflecting off the clear water carried with it a sense of belonging that the girls had been missing.

A sense of familiarity with how the world was.

Leaning back on her hands for stability, Anne decided to wait a moment before washing her own clothes. They really should find something to act as a bed. Marcy had suggested one of the giant mushrooms growing a few hours away, but actually transporting it through the thick foliage of the jungle had proved nearly impossible.

But still, all that was in the past. Right now, in the moment, Anne was at peace. Sure, the ground and river were muddier than usual due to another short rainstorm, but those were common around here. Sure, they had made no progress on actually getting home, and Sasha was talking about abandoning the camp, but that was in the future, and Anne would go along with anything her friend wanted. Sure, they were trapped in a strange alien world, but Anne was fine.

Her hands did ache though, the old burn from her first night here flaring up again. She should soak them in the river for a moment; numb them in the cold until they returned to their usual, continuous dull ache.

Glancing over her shoulder, Anne noticed Sasha playing idly on her phone while waiting for the other two to finish their daily routine, a small log working as a seat for her. She had a blank look on her face, but offered a smile when she finally looked up and noticed Anne watching.

“Hey!” Marcy shouted from the middle of the river, “you two should get in here! The water’s great!”

Considering the proposition for a moment, Anne shook her head, “No thanks. I’m fine just chilling over here on the shore.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I’ll pop in.” Sasha asserted, putting her phone on the wood beside her. “Maybe the cold’ll do something for all these bruises. Feels like I can barely move without something hurting.”

A spark of guilt rocketed through Anne’s body, exiting through her mouth as she offered a quick apology, which Sasha accepted. Deeper in the river, Marcy pumped her hand and then drove it forward, splashing water up over at her friends.

Sasha simply smiled smugly and took a running leap, cannonballing into the water directly next to her. The ensuing splash caught her off guard, drenching her entire upper body.

Anne watched from the shoreline for a couple of minutes, a warm, cozy glow behind her eyes as she watched them play, spraying water into the air.

Relaxed, Anne just laid down on her back, looking up at the clear sky. Sure, she was probably just getting leaves and sticks caught in her hair again and she had just picked it clean, but at this point, she was used to sleeping on the ground.

She wondered briefly about the possibility that she’d never return home again, as she often did, but for once, her worries seemed distant. Like, for a brief moment, everything was going to be fine.

The ground near her let out a squelch as Sasha walked up next to her, towering over her and casting a shadow that kept the bright sun out of her eyes. She was dripping with clean water, but on her face was a look of minor confusion.

“Hey Anne, did you take my phone?”

“What?”

“Sorry, I was just…hoping. I can’t seem to…find it.” Sasha said, patting her pockets to help her explanation.

“Oh.” Anne said, sitting up. “Did you drop it somewhere?”

“I hope not. Can you check your bag for me, maybe it slipped in there at some point. I’ll go ask Marcy as well, maybe she’s seen it. I could have sworn I was using it a minute ago.”

Walking away, a brief cry of ‘Hey Mar-Mar’ echoed over the water as Anne flipped her bag over her shoulder and zipped it open. Picking up the music box, Anne tenderly put it on the ground next to her to more easily dig through the bag. And yet, despite flipping through the magazines, socks and other assorted nothings, she couldn’t find Sasha’s phone.

“Any luck, Anne?” Sasha shouted, knee deep in the water.

Anne shook her head.

“Nuts.” Sasha said, patting her pockets again. “I must have dropped it somewhere around here.

Sneaking up behind her and flinching in unison with Sasha when she noticed, Marcy shook her mothy head. “Nah, you just put it down on that log over there, remember? Why, is it gone?”

“Maybe you dropped it when Marcy spooked you, and are just getting confused.” Anne added, filling her bag again and slinging it onto her back. She had grown accustomed to the weight by now, and in a strange kind of way, felt naked without it. While nothing in it was commonly useful, she had kind of slipped into the role of ‘pack mule’ among the girls; carrying whatever they needed when their hands became full.

“Yeah, it’s probably just…back at the camp.” Sasha said, a rare look of uncertainty on her face.

Standing up fully, Anne shot Sasha an understanding smile. “Do you want me to help look for it, Sash?”

“Yeah, I’d…I’d like that.”

Spinning on the balls of her feet, Anne gave an exaggerated salute. “C’mon then, we’ll find it in a jiffy.”

Strutting over to the obvious place to look, the log that Sasha had been sitting on not a moment ago, Anne gave it a quick walk around. It wasn’t still there, and it wasn’t subtly buried in the mud nearby either, like it would be if it had simply slipped off the chair. In fact, it looked as though it had never been there at all.

Except…

Around the ‘back’ of the log, that is, the side of the log that faced the jungle, Anne’s keen eyes noticed something odd. Or more accurately, her feet did.

See, she had spent a lot of time at this river, and she’d gotten used to a certain level of give in the mud beneath her. It was soft, but usually only rose to the level of her soles as she walked around. But standing on the mud over here, away from the river, she sunk nearly up to her feet.

It was as if the land had been freshly broken up; aerated and tilled in the short span of time since Sasha leapt into the river.

Bending over, Anne pushed at it with her hand, noting that she really shouldn’t need to push so easily to compress it. And with a little luck, she could tell where the soft mud started, and the hard mud ended.

“Found it, Anne?” A shout called out over the river.

Physically feeling her train of thought derail, Anne snapped to attention. “N…no! Sorry, just…getting distracted. Call that pulling a Marcy, eh?”

“Hey!”

“Sorry Mar-Mar.”

Bending back down, Anne followed the edge of the squishy mud. Unlike what she was expecting, it didn’t seem to be leading her deeper into the jungle. Instead, it pushed her down the riverside, towards a large mangrove forest that dominated the upper section of the river. Said forest was the reason that the girls had yet to travel up river in search of civilization, as Marcy had suggested. It was nearly impossible to walk through, and who knew what dangers could be lurking in the shades of those trees?

Travelling a little further upstream than the girls usually would, Anne’s heart leapt as she noticed the tell-tale, unmistakable lime green of Sasha’s phone poking out of the mud. Anne didn’t even think to find it odd how Sasha’s phone might have wound up so far away from them; especially when Sasha had never even been here before, but she was willing to ignore all that so long as she got the phone back to her friend.

Spinning around, Anne shouted back to her friends, “Yo, over here! I found it!”

Turning back around though, Anne bit her tongue as she realized that it was gone.

“Wha…?”

Oh no, wait, it was just a little further away than she thought it was. That’s all it was. Scanning forward, Anne mentally slapped her forehead. Of course it was still here, it wasn’t like it could move.

Her feet left obvious tracks as she walked forward, bending down to seize the phone from the muddy clutches of the Earth.

Only to flinch as the phone suddenly slid sideways like a flighty insect. Like a lily-pad floating on the water, it hovered on a sea of mud, tantalizingly close.

Oh, so it could move.

Something was triggering warning bells in Anne’s mind, but she fought down the sensation of panic. Her friends were just a few metres away; it wasn’t like anything bad could happen to her while they were around.

Following the phone closer towards the mangroves, Anne smiled as it finally stopped moving and she could reach it. In all likelihood, it was probably just a little buggo that had gotten caught in the screen protector or something pulling it around.

Reaching down, Anne tried to grab the phone again, only for it to once again jump away from her.

“Alright, enough of that. Stand still.” Anne said, following it again.

It paused for a moment just in reach, but Anne’s lunge was a step too short, scaring it away again. She pursued it for a moment longer, finally cornering it in a small nook formed by the roots of a riverside tree.

Reaching down, Anne smugly grabbed the phone, her fingers wrapping around the edges.

And the moment she did, the earth itself attacked.

A pillar of solid mud, nearly a metre long, sprang out of the ground around the phone, encasing Anne’s hand entirely along with a fair amount of her arm. In its core, she could still feel the phone, but it was impossible to pull out now. Successfully fighting down panic, Anne struggled to remain on her feet as whatever lurked in the mud started to move again.

Jerked forward, Anne stumbled around as her arm remained glued to the floor. The thing was trying to throw her off balance, but she wasn’t going to give it the chance. Reaching into her bag with her free hand, expertly twisting around to avoid falling over, and pulling out her racket, Anne prepared to fight.

Swinging the racket sideways, she jammed it into the side of the pillar, causing it to flinch and give her a momentary abatement. A victory short lived, however, as something else shot out of the pillar to grab at her racket.

Disturbingly, it was a human hand. Admittedly, one made of mud, but it was a hand nonetheless. The sight of it made Anne stumble backwards, which was a mistake considering how the monster, and it had to be a monster at this point Anne would accept nothing else, was grabbing her hand. Taking advantage of her weakness, the monster lurched backwards, taking Anne with it.

She fell on her side roughly, the wind being knocked out of her as she landed. Her arm got the worst of it, being pulled for nearly its entire length into the muck.

And then Anne felt it keep pulling down.

Oh God, it was pulling her into the mud!

Shoulder deep and sinking, Anne flailed her free leg back and forth before finding something solid to sink it into, just enough to hold her place. Taking her free hand, she slammed it into the mud near her head, panicking when it too vanished into the soggy mess. Pulling it out again, Anne instead laid it flat against the Earth, hoping that spreading her body weight would help her resist whatever was attacking her.

Water flowed over her face, a side effect of being so close to the river, gathering in her mouth and nose and choking her out as she struggled to remain visible. She couldn’t even shout for help.

“Anne!”

The sudden shout felt like fire running through her veins, originating in her head and spreading to the rest of her body. That’s right, her friends were right there. Spurred on by the incoming help, Anne threw her body upwards. The grip of the creature snapped away from her, surprisingly weaker than Anne expected, as she stumbled to her knees.

It grabbed at her again, seizing her shoulder with its creepy hand, but she was prepared now. Rolling forward, the creature had no way of stopping her from escaping, its strength unable to even hold down a teenage girl without the element of surprise and panic.

“Alright, you ready to try again?” Anne said, now certain that she could beat whatever this thing was in a fair fight.

In response, the pillar, or more accurately, whatever had created it, disappeared back into the soggy ground, taking Sasha’s phone with it. With surprising speed, it darted off again, clearly unwilling to fight three prepared teenage girls at once.

Fighting down the urge to chase it again, Anne could only watch as it slithered into the reeds and mangroves and disappeared completely.

Sharing a look with Sasha as she ran up beside her, Anne listened to her dear friend.

“Anne, are you okay? What was that thing? You should have called for help, what were you thinking, running off like that? Don’t you ever wander off alone, that was the first rule I gave you!”

A rock whizzed past her ear as Marcy let out a true sluggers throw. All it resulted in was a wet splat as it hit the mud deeper in the mangroves, but it was the thought that counted.

“Leave her alone, you coward!” Marcy shouted into the empty air.

Stepping back, Anne waved her hands in front of her. Just a small distance away, Marcy kept her eyes locked on the reeds. “No, no, wait, Sasha, you don’t get it. That…that thing had your phone! I was just trying to get it back!”

“And you scared it away?” Sasha said with a hint of accusation in her tone.

“Well, I mean, I didn’t…didn’t mean to.”

Walking her way into the conversation, Marcy carried a tone of worry in her voice, “Just what was that thing? It didn’t look like any kind of animal I know.”

“There are animals you don’t know?”

“No.”

A shiver ran down Anne’s spine. Snapping back into focus as Sasha grabbed her, she inhaled quickly.

“Wait, you said that thing had my phone?” Sasha asked.

“Ye…yeah. It’s unmistakable. Yours is the lime green one, right?”

“Are you sure?”

Anne was quiet for a moment, before nodding confidently.

“Heck.” Sasha said.

“Hey, don’t worry, we can get it back, right?” Anne replied, her own smile a lot less confident.

“Can we?” Marcy jutted in, “there’s a reason we haven’t already explored up the river. These mangroves, this mud, it’d take us hours just to get into the lake proper. That’s time I don’t think Sasha wants to waste. Not to mention, that thing is probably long gone by now. Unless it has a den in there, we’d never find it.”

Anne and Sasha were quiet as they separately considered Marcy’s argument. Sasha opened her mouth to talk, but was, for once, cut off by Anne.

“What if it did have a den there? It’s still worth a look, right? Just a quick little one, to make sure.”

“Anne, I really don’t feel like wadding through mud up to my waist on a chance.” Marcy said.

Sasha ran over her friends with her gaze, before scanning over the thick reeds in front of her. Another flash of apprehension, noticeable only to Anne, passed over her face, before she looked down in defeat and sighed.

“No. You’re right, Marcy, it’s gone.”

“But Sash…”

“It’s fine. It’s just a stupid phone, nothing worth putting ourselves in danger over. Besides, I can’t even use it to make calls or browse the internet, it’s practically worthless. I only use it to watch old TV shows before bed. Really, it’s my fault for not keeping a closer eye on it.”

Slapping Anne on the back, Sasha said, “But hey, I appreciate you trying to get it back, Anne. That was really brave of you, I’m impressed.”

Anne blushed, “Oh, uh, thanks.”

“Now come on, we gotta lot of stuff to do today. No use sitting around and moping; survival is at hand!”

“So what is the plan, Sasha?” Marcy asked.

“We’re gonna have to give up the camp. We could sit around her forever if we wanted, but it would never get us home. If this entire valley is empty, then we need to find a way out of the valley. And that means travelling to those mountains on the horizon.”

“A proper start to our quest; now that we’ve got our bearings. I’m all on board.”

“Stop calling this a quest. Now, moving on,” Sasha added, “the plan right now is just to build up enough supplies that we can dedicate the time to make the trip. We’ll be going into uncharted territory, and that means no guaranteed source of food and water. We’ll need to make sure we have plenty of both.”

Motioning her arm over her shoulder, Sasha took the lead as they wandered back to their usual riverside location.

“Can…can I wash up first?” Anne asked meekly, pointing out that the entire left side of her body was now covered in mud.

“Oh, right. Sure.”

The day passed quickly, and before the girls knew it, they were back at camp.

There was no fire tonight and Anne was beginning to learn just how cold nights could get in the strange world they had found themselves in.

Not that they were abstaining entirely by choice. Make no mistake, Marcy had become very proficient in getting a fire started, even without the remnants of last night’s fire to help her kindle the dry, sunlight-choked grass, but tonight, other forces had conspired to keep them in the cold.

When they had lit the fire tonight, a large, house sized firefly had seen their beacon piercing through the night and mindlessly flown into it; tearing apart the flimsy roof they had constructed and making a mess of the entire camp before the girls had managed to chase it off, razer-tipped spears in hand. It was a few holes lighter, but dreading its return, or even worse, more of its kind, Sasha had ordered that tonight they would remain entirely flameless.

Of course, she had to have realized that she would get the short end of the stick, Anne thought. Marcy had her new coat and hoodie to keep her warm. And having a uniform without a dozen holes and rips in it was certainly better than the clothing that Sasha was forced to wear. And so she sat there, shivering, and doing her best to look like she wasn’t suffering in silence.

In the light of the moon though (which was actually very strong, luckily,) it was hard for Anne to ignore. Glancing up from her phone, Anne offered her a gentle smile.

“Hey Sash, are you sure you don’t wanna come a little closer?” Anne asked.

“I’m fine,” Sasha replied, rubbing her arms, “fine, fine, fine.” Her teeth clattered together as Anne watched her breath come out in white plumes.

“It’s just that…”

“Don’t. I don’t need your help, Anne. Not right now.”

Shrugging, Anne returned to her video game. Next to her, in a little space that Marcy had cleared out so that the sunlight, or moonlight, or firelight, or whatever kind of light she needed could shine through easily, her other friend worked silently on her magnum opus.

Several minutes passed without any hint of conversation, as two of the girls engrossed themselves in their work, and the third simply stared forward blankly.

Sasha’s words cut through the tension that only she could feel. “So…uh…either of you ready for bed yet? Cause I’m feeling kinda tired after everything today…”

“You kidding, Sasha? I can still barely see the sun. We got plenty of time.”

“Yeah, dude. Just like…relax. We only get a couple hours of free time now, and I don’t want to get all muddy just yet.”

For a second, a flash of indignation crossed Sasha’s face, before it was replaced with a friendly smile. Slithering between the two, Sasha threw her arms over their shoulders.

“Aw, come on, you two, aren’t you just a little bit tired? Writing in that big book all day, not to mention carrying it around, Marcy, where do you find the energy? You’re not even on the sports team like Anne is; all this physical work must be so exhausting. Plus, who knows how many calories thinking burns. Why not call it in early today?”

Twisting her view over to Anne, Sasha continued, “And Anne, all that stuff we put in your bag, isn’t that heavy as well? Our ticket home weighs so much just by itself, I can’t imagine everything else. You’re so strong, but you shouldn’t push yourself so hard for our sake. Take this as a chance to just…be yourself.”

“So does that mean that one of you are gonna carry the bag tomorrow?” Anne asked hopefully.

“What do you say we call it in for the day, and tomorrow, we can set off into the world, nice and fresh?”

Giant crickets echoed into the camp as Anne and Marcy considered her words separately. Being honest, Anne’s back was starting to hurt a little, not to mention her calves. All the trundling through the thick mud had really done a number on her. A rest wouldn’t be out of the question. But still…

Anne parsed over Marcy to make sure she was in agreement before they both shook their heads, causing Sasha’s smile to vanish.

“Sorry, but I really do need to get this done. If something were to happen to me, not that anything will, you two are really going to need this book. And I never get time to work on it while we’re out in the field; you’re always pushing me along, Sasha.”

“Yeah, and I’m just not ready for bed. All those bugs and sticks,” Anne stuck out her tongue as a shiver ran down her spine, “yergh. No thanks, I’m not getting down and dirty just yet.”

Anne had known Sasha for a long time. They had met all the way back in kindergarten, and during that time, Anne had come to know her friend very well. She was usually a calm, collected person; she was the kind of person to never let her temper get the best of her, to never let anyone see her get upset (with one recent exception.) And yet, beneath that façade, Anne had come to learn her friends true feelings when they sprang to the surface in the moment.

A nearly invisible twitch sprang into Sasha’s eye, and for a split second, her confident smile wavered. It didn’t vanish, but the corners of her mouth dropped imperceptibly.

“Okay. Fine. Fine fine fine.”

Shuffling away, Sasha sat back down in her usual spot; keeping the tension in her face to prevent her teeth from chattering. Sparing her a quick look, Marcy quickly returned to her book, while Anne smiled warmly before looking back down at her phone.

But it wasn’t long before Sasha, in search of something to do for herself, stood back up again and inched closer to the Marcy.

Sitting down next to her, Sasha smiled awkwardly. “So…uh…what are…what are you working on?”

Shuffling away, Marcy timidly replied, “You’re…you’re interested?”

Sasha nodded.

“Oh, huh. It’s…uh…well, it’s kind of complicated. See, I think I’ve found a way to ‘tame’ a Nephiliant so that it’ll stop wandering back to its nest every night. I’m writing down the idea now.”

“Oh, that’s genius, Marcy. You’re so smart.”

“You really think so? Oh geez, it’s just a theory at this point, but I think it has a lot of potential. See, if we separate each variety of insect into a different class, than we can begin to establish a kind of ‘food chain’ between them. Naturally, the smaller bugs are at the bottom, but larger ones without sufficient protection…”

For the first minute or so, Sasha was genuinely interested in whatever theory or idea that Marcy had decided to dedicate her time to this night. Anything was better than sitting alone in the cold with nothing to do. It was at the five minute mark that Sasha started to remember why she didn’t generally talk to Marcy for more than five minutes.

“But of course, I can’t just go drenching my arm in mantis blood every time I want to lure him out of his hole; I only have a limited supply of that. Which is why it’s very important that we gather up some of those glowing mushrooms tomorrow…”

The attentive look on Sasha’s face started to drain away as Marcy continued to talk. By the ten minute mark, it was completely gone. By the twenty, Sasha was actively searching for something new to do, not that Marcy was even noticed.

“And I am NOT getting stung by bees again. You know what I mean?”

Sasha gave no response, as she had stopped listening minutes ago. Undeterred, Marcy continued, “So anyway, back to my point about the food chain.”

“Enough!”

Sasha shouted, standing up suddenly. Her breath came out quickly, and heavily, like she had just run a marathon. Looking over at Marcy madly, she quickly shook her head before walking away; her arms waving in the air. “I can’t take any more of this.”

Sitting down next to Anne, Sasha smiled, “Anne, what are you doing?”

Anne looked at her cautiously. Thinking back, this was probably the first time that Sasha had taken an interest in what either of them were doing since they came here. She couldn’t really be that bored, could she?

Poking her expectantly, Anne snapped back to reality.

“Oh, I’m just going through some pictures I took today. See, here’s one of us!” Anne explained, holding the phone up to Sasha’s face. Focusing on the image, Sasha smirked. The image was a relatively simple one, of the three of them walking through the forest. Anne was facing the camera, and giving it a peace sign, as Sasha and Marcy walk on ahead of her, ignorant to the image being taken at all.

“Ugh, my hair is so bad in that one. Delete it.” Sasha eventually said.

“I kinda liked it though…”

“Anne.”

“Fine.” Anne said, clicking the tiny little trash bin in the corner and sending the picture away, “Oh, here’s one of a cool insect I saw!”

Marcy quickly raised her head out of the book. “Oh, gimme a look at that!”

Tossing the phone over Sasha’s head, Anne froze temporarily as she realized that she’d just tossed her phone over Sasha’s head. Why did she do that?

Luckily, Marcy caught it easily and brought the glowing screen up to her face.

“Oh yeah, I call that one a Grubble. Actually, taking pictures of all these creatures is a great way to make sure I get them right for my book. That’s pretty clever, Anne.”

The unexpected praise chased the cold away from Anne’s heart. “Really?”

Throwing the phone back, Marcy nodded, “Of course! You’re smarter than you think you are, lil buddy.”

Grabbing the phone out of mid-air, Sasha gently handed it back to Anne after taking look herself. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. It’s just a stupid bug. Looks kind of tasty though.” Sasha paused, “Wait, what am I saying?”

Flipping through her images, Anne continued, “See, and here’s one of me and Marcy we took while you were…busy.”

Sasha stared at it for a while. It was nothing special, just the two of them posing as Anne took a selfie. Anne smiled at Sasha hopefully as her expressionless face scanned over it.

“Delete that one too.”

“What? Why?” Anne asked, shocked, her smile dropping.

“Because I said so.”

“Oh…okay.” Anne said, hovering her finger over the delete button before finally committing to the act and pressing it. She felt a small burst of anger inside her, but it quickly crashed against the wall of friendship she’d built in her mind.

They continued like this for several minutes, with Sasha picking and choosing which images to delete almost at random. Or at least, if there was a reasoning, she couldn’t deduce it. Anne had taken a lot of photos since coming here; even back home she was known for being a bit of a photographer. If there was one thing that she was certain of, their whole journey would be well catalogued.

“And here’s…oh, it’s us! Outside the thrift store, on Earth, I mean. Right after I…”

Anne paused, but Sasha finished her sentence, “right after you stole the music box.”

“Yeah.” Anne quickly swiped away, but it only opened to another picture of them a minute before the first. “We really…looked very happy back then, didn’t we? Didn’t know what we were getting into.”

“Yeah.” Sasha added, but not really added to the conversation. “I never noticed how…sad you looked in that one though. Good thing you got over that, huh?”

“Haha, y…yeah.”

Swiping again, Anne continued, “And here’s a picture of us at the mall. And here’s one of us at school. And here’s…

Anne felt her blood freeze, and it wasn’t because the setting of the sun had set the dropping of the temperature in motion. She hadn’t expected to, so suddenly, feel a sense of longing this intense. To feel such an amount of isolation and desperation and hopelessness in a single image.

“And here’s my mom.” She finished.

Closing down the picture app, Anne stood up. “You know what, I…I think I’ve had enough of pictures for tonight.”

Standing up after her, Sasha clapped her hands together. “Sweet! You mind if I use your phone then? Gotta be something on there worth doing.”

Initially knocked off-guard by the question, Anne recovered quickly and shrugged, passing her phone over to Sasha.

Putting in Anne’s password, Sasha quickly swiped through Anne’s digital landscape until she settled on something she liked, sitting down in her usual place while Anne just followed suit instinctively, her mind in a different place.

She stared up at the sky as memories of home started to settle in her mind.

Sasha had told her that they were going to get back home. And when Sasha told her something, it happened. That’s just how it was. It was why she was the de facto leader of their friend group.

But were they? Sure, they had the box, but all they knew about it was what they could assume. What if the gems couldn’t be replaced and it was out of power for good? What if there were no replacements? Or what if it was destroyed one day while they were escaping a monster? Maybe it had to be charged by engaging in a number of deadly trials, like Marcy thought. On some level, Anne felt proud that her friends trusted her enough to carry it, to protect it, but was it really something she was qualified to do?

Anne circled back to her original thought. It had already been a week since they arrived, and they were no closer to getting home than before. What if it took them another week? Or a month? Or a year? What if…what if they never went home?

What if she never saw her mom again?

What if Sasha never saw hers?

Waiting until nobody was watching, Anne silently slid some things out of her bag and tossed them behind her; letting them become hidden in the shadow of the log she was sitting on. Making sure that nobody had seen her, Anne once again let her worries and concerns drown her mind; let them simmer and stew until they were a tasteless broth of ‘what ifs’ and worst case scenarios.

She didn’t know how long had passed before Marcy let out a loud yawn beside her, which prompted Sasha to do the same.

“Alright, done,” Said Marcy, closing the book with a clap, “that one was a real doozy, you’ll enjoy that when either of you finally get around to reading this thing.”

Waving her hand dismissively, Sasha shrugged, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get around to it sometime. I’m sure it’s quality, you’re a pretty smart lass.”

“Marcy, you know I love you, and I’d never do anything to you hurt you, and vice versa…” Anne said.

“I know this.”

“But I am probably never going to read that book. It’s like a science journal, are you kidding me? I’d be bored out of my skull!”

The smile dropped from Marcy’s face. “Aw, c’mon. I know it may look and sound a little boring, but if you just gave it a try, who knows? You might really enjoy it!”

“Eh, whatever.” Anne replied.

Sliding into the triangular rut that had formed from a week’s worth of sleeping in the same spot, Sasha patted the ground near her head, tempting Anne to lie down beneath her so that she could keep her head clean. “Be nice, Marcy worked really hard on that.”

“Eh.” Anne said, taking her position in the Triforce. It didn’t take long for Marcy to do the same for Anne.

She just soaked in the feeling of unity that their sleeping triangle gave her for a moment. It was grounding, almost spiritual. The rhythmic heartbeat of Marcy beneath her, echoing into Sasha, reverberating back into her. She loved her friends so much, it almost hurt. She loved that they were willing to be friends with someone like her.

“Well?” Sasha eventually asked, piercing the silence.

“What?” Anne said, snapping out of her peaceful mind.

“What’s the question tonight?”

“Huh?” Anne said, twisting over to look at her friend.

“You know, you usually ask us something that’s worrying you at this time of night.” Marcy elaborated for her.

“Oh!” Anne said, relaxing back into her other friend. In all honesty, her mind was raging with many questions she wanted to ask. Some of them were even relevant to their current situation. Yet, despite this, Anne shook her head and, once she realized Sasha wasn’t looking, spoke up, “Nothing tonight. I’m satisfied.”

“Huh. Alright, well, welcome change, I guess. Night, you two.”

“Good night, Sasha.”

Anne waited a good hour to ensure that her friends were asleep before she moved. The hard part was sliding her bag beneath Sasha’s head so that she wouldn’t notice Anne was gone. It was slightly lighter from Anne removing the things she knew she’d need, but it seemingly made no difference to the sleeping teenager.

She’d left the box behind, which was an easy decision. No way was she going to risk losing it stumbling around in the dark, and it should be reasonably safe in the camp. Creeping over to her log, Anne reached into a large hole she’d dug behind it and pulled out her tennis racket. In her other hand, she slid her phone out of her pocket and flipped the torch on, flinching as the light blinded her.

Was she doing the right thing? Sasha had said that she didn’t care about her phone. And going out at night wasn’t just dangerous, it was suicide. They had only travelled that jungle at night once, and the experience had been enough to scare them into cowering in their camp until morning.

Amphibia changes at night. The dangers of the day seemed trivial compared to the dangers of the night.

And yet…the river was right there. Anne could be there and back within a handful of minutes. And on some level…

That phone was more important than Sasha thought. More important than she thought. She just wanted to be certain, to know for sure that whatever had stolen it wasn’t hiding by the riverside; just a stone’s throw away. If she could get that phone back, it was worth the danger.

Anne thought of her mom before setting off.

She could find her way back to the river with her eyes closed by this point. Their repeated trips back and forth had even started to create a rudimentary road; the foot-packed mud and sand creating a trail forwards.

In her mind, Anne wasn’t really expecting to find Sasha’s phone. It was entirely possible that whatever had stolen it had long since disappeared in the hours since it was taken. The odds of her finding it again were incredibly low.

But they weren’t zero.

If the thing really had a den in the mangroves, she wanted to know. She didn’t want to lose Sasha’s phone without a fight, without being certain that there was no way to get it back.

Arriving at the river, Anne ducked out the way as a large insect, a real chimera of different animals, drank deeply in the relative safety of the watering hole. She waited a moment to ensure that it hadn’t seen her, and set off further upstream.

Deep in thought, Anne stumbled unexpectedly as the ground shifted beneath her. Assuming at first that she’d simply lost her footing, Anne glanced down, only to jump when she realized that the ground actually was moving.

A large pile of mud darted away from her; an unmistakable lump that looked more like someone hiding under a sheet than tunnelling through the ground. And yet, despite this, the pile moved with surprising ease as it slipped away from Anne.

“Whaaaat…” Anne said, taking a step closer to it.

Once again, the mud shifted, much faster this time. A rumbling sound filled Anne’s ears as the lump made its way down the riverbank, expertly dodging and weaving around the large rocks and immovable plants that lined its way.

That was what she was looking for.

Hesitating for only a split second, Anne took off after it, sprinting as fast as her legs would take her. It was time for their rematch, and she was taking that phone from its den one way or another.

Following the mysterious creature for several minutes, Anne suddenly tripped as her foot caught on the rough ground.

Ahead of her, the mud was suddenly thrown in her direction as the pile rose; bursting forth in an explosion of debris as the creature proper made itself known to her.

Anne had seen many insects since coming to Amphibia. Most were just giant versions of ones on Earth, but occasionally, she’d be greeted by something truly new, something that couldn’t be explained by a simple shift in size; like the Rattleworm.

But this…Anne didn’t know what she was looking at.

It wasn’t an insect or a bird, she knew that much. Coated head to toe in mud, the creature was nearly all leg. It towered above Anne like two shoots of bamboo. In comparison, its body was tiny, a mere round ball upon which two arms, yes, arms she quickly realized, poked out. Each arm was, of course, topped by the same creepy hands that had grabbed at her earlier that day. From beyond its mask of mud, a pair of hollow eyes stared at her, focusing and unfocusing rapidly as if it wasn’t used to the simple light of the moon.

And in its hand, slowly being coated in the same covering of mud dripping down the creature, was her friend’s phone; unmistakable in its appearance.

Anne just stared at it for a moment. What did she do? What was she supposed to do? The creature had noticed her by now, its eyes still empty and hollow as it waited on her to make the first move. Standing back up, Anne pointed at the phone.

“H…hey! That’s our phone! Give it back!”

The mud-thing gawked at her, seemingly not understanding a word she was saying. Which made sense, Anne realized, since it was most likely nothing more than a simple unthinking beast.

At least, that’s what Anne thought. But it was a thought quickly challenged, as the thing pointed at the phone in its free hand, before cocking its entire body to the side.

“Y…yes! Just…just put it down.”

Another moment passed, before the creature took a step back. Waving its arms in front of it hastily, the thing shook its head.

“It’s ours, so just…give it back!”

Again, the thing shook its head.

Gritting her teeth, Anne pulled out her tennis racket. The meaning was so obvious that even a beast could understand her intent. Looking up at the thing, Anne silently went over her options, before deciding on a low strike. Its legs were most likely its weak point, so if she disabled them first, getting her phone back would be easy.

She was a little disgusted at herself for even being able to pick out a creature’s weak point, much less actually consider hurting it. The jungle had changed her; something like that would have been unthinkable back home.

Sensing that the mud-thing had no intention of giving the phone back, Anne struck first, swinging at where she assumed its knees were.

A heavy thunk echoed across the river as the thing caught Anne’s attack in its hand and pulled her closer. Placing both hands on the racket, Anne considered her mistake as the body of the creature split in half. Brown mud gave way to stinking yellow teeth and blood red maw as the creature continued to split, the centre of its body stretching and stretching until it was nearly all mouth; nothing more than an open clam lined with fangs. Anne tried to back away, but also refused to relinquish her weapon.

The breathe of the thing felt warm on Anne’s face as it leaned down and for a split second, she considered letting go. No small piece of metal was worth getting bitten in half for.

Releasing the racket, Anne dodged backwards to try and gain some ground away from the thing. A futile effort, she’d find out, as the tongue of the monster lashed out of its mouth faster than her eye could see and wrapped itself around her still extended arm. Even now, this thing was full of surprises.

The sting from the impact was slightly lessened as Anne’s body kicked into overtime, not in part due to the creature starting to pull her closer to its hungry mouth. In its hands, it refused to let go of either item.

Digging her feet into the mud, Anne tried to stand her ground, but failed as the moist ground slipped beneath her, her feet leaving deep ruts as she was pulled closer.

On some level, she recognized that she should be panicking right now. But perhaps it was the multiple deadly situations she’d already survived, or some nugget of self-preservation that she had never needed to rely on growing up in California, she was completely calm.

Pulling at the tongue with her free hand didn’t work, so Anne prepared a new plan; to dash directly forward and shoulder barge the thing as hard as she could.

At least, that was the plan, until the creature flinched, unexpectedly.

Anne noticed it immediately.

The tension from the tongue had twisted her hand upwards, shining her phone’s light directly into the creature’s face.

Maybe there was a reason the thing had remained underground for their entire fight that morning. The thing had avoided her light during their chase as well. And even now, it was blinking and twitching whenever forced into direct moonlight. Was there a chance…

“So, you hate light, is that it?” Anne shouted, sure that the creature couldn’t even understand her.

Working from memory, Anne twiddled her thumb around on her phone’s screen until she was certain that she’d found what she wanted.

“Well, try this on for size then!”

Pushing down, a bright flash light up the entire riverside as Anne’s camera captured the terrified expression of the mud monster. As the monster released her arm, Anne grimaced as slime dripped down her body, but quickly swallowed her disgust to continue her ‘assault.’

There was another flash, then two. Backpedelling, the monster tried to raise its arms in front of its eyes to block the sudden light, but found them too thin and gangly to be effective. Anne took a selfie during the attack, before returning to the simple decision of overwhelming the monster every few seconds.

Until finally, it decided it had enough. Falling onto its back, the mud monster vibrated as Anne watched through the bright glimpses, sinking into the mud like it had before and slithering away; leaving a deep grove behind it as it fled.

Breathing heavily, Anne smiled, and pumped her fist. “Aw yeah! Who’s the girl? I am! Now let’s get my…racket…back.”

The monster had stolen her racket, as well as refusing to give up its grip on Sasha’s phone. All Anne had done was chase it away.

“Well…shoot.”

Following the track for a few feet, Anne paused as she realized that it lead her directly into the mangroves. Thick, clumped, sturdy and embedded in knee deep mud, the three of them had decided that it was simply too much work for no gain to try and power through them. And to do so in the middle of the night, that was enough to give Anne pause.

Pause that her anxiety took no time at all to sink into. Did she really want to pursue the monster? It had just nearly eaten her, and she escaped by the skin of her teeth. There would be no shame in cutting her losses her and heading back to camp. Sasha might…no, would shout at her for losing her racket, but it would certainly be better than not being berated at all.

And there was no telling how far the creature would run anyway. She could be chasing it all night and if she ran into another monster, like a nocturnal bat or something, her light wasn’t going to be enough to chase it off. Plus, she was without a weapon now.

But on the other hand, she knew the creature’s weakness. She had nothing to fear from the mud monster itself. A little bit of light and she’d be safe as rain. And it wasn’t like she was just going to let it take her racket and escape. She hadn’t come this far just to lose more personal belongings, she came this far to win! She came this far to help a friend who didn’t even realize that she needed help!

And she needed that phone to do it.

Peeking down at her phone, Anne noted that she still had plenty of power left. Shining the light forward, Anne bravely ventured into the mangrove forest.

The path of the creature was easy to follow; it had made no attempt to disguise where it was going. It was forcing her way through the knee deep mud that was the real challenge. Anne had only been walking for a few minutes when they finally parted enough for her to move comfortably, but it felt like an hour.

The tracks became harder to follow as Anne continued her twilight journey, before they stopped entirely. Veering hard to the left, the tracks angled away from the river, heading deeper into the forest, down a steep incline towards a darker part of the woods. The kind of woods where the sun never reached, which made sense considering what Anne knew about the creature.

It also looked like the Mud-Man had finally pulled itself out of the ground, if the large hole near the edge of the grass that separated the riverside from the jungle proper was any indication.

Taking a deep breath, having already resolved herself to follow this through to the end, Anne leapt forward, sliding down the hill on her heels and taking extra care to avoid any of the trees that sprang into her path. And when she hit the bottom, she ventured forth.

Several minutes of tentative tracking ensued, until Anne realized that she had travelled into a part of the forest that none of the girls had visited before. The smell of decay was powerful here; the trees extra spongy and porous to Anne’s touch. Despite the tree cover preventing the light of the moon from entering, the entire section of the jungle was well lit. Red, luminescent mushrooms were common here, bundles of the things growing at the base of nearly every tree. Still, the red light sent warning signs into Anne’s brain. Large pools of stagnant mud were equally common; deep enough that Anne couldn’t reach their bottoms with a large stick. Falling into one would probably be her doom.

You know what else was common? Bones. Mostly giant frog bones, but bones, none the less. To be honest, the sight of them made Anne lose just a little bit of her resolve.

Sticking to solid ground, Anne followed the muddy footprints of the Mud-Man. Suddenly, something cracked behind her. Spinning around quickly, Anne shone her light into the trees and overgrown shrubbery, but couldn’t see anything out of place. Waiting a moment for another noise, she slowly turned back around and continued on her way.

She could feel goose bumps on her skin; the kind of goose bumps you got from knowing someone was watching you, but you didn’t know where. Shadows shifted and jumped from the corners of her eyes, but there was never anything there when she snapped her vision to them. Only more glowing mushrooms and overcast shadows.

Maybe…maybe it wasn’t too late to turn around.

The snapping of branches was more common now, but Anne could never see why. Surely the Mud-Man hadn’t looped back around and was following her now? That would be impossible, right?

Circling a large pool of oozing mud, Anne caught sight of the end of the line.

To call it a home was a vast overstatement. This was a den; a hole in the ground covered by thick leaves which had only one purpose. To shield its occupants from the dangerous world while they slept, and nothing more. It was large enough to fit a man though, and so Anne stopped at its entrance.

Shining her torch in, Anne half expected the Mud-Man to lunge out at her and prepared herself accordingly. A spring in her heel would let her jump away in time, but proved unnecessary, as the den was empty. And shining the light more accurately, Anne could see the glimmer of something very important.

“My racket!”

Walking into the den, Anne grabbed her racket, pulling it off the wall with a squelch as the muddy surface gave way easily. And if her racket was here…

Scanning around with her light, Anne focused on all the other things that the Mud-Man was apparently using to decorate the interior of its hideaway. A large staff with a red crystal at the top that pulsed menacingly, an old bucket that was falling apart, a group of shovels shoved haphazardly upon each other into a load bearing wall, and…

“Yes! The phone!”

Rushing across the ‘room,’ Anne stumbled into the phone and ripped it from the wall. Tapping away at its surface, Anne paused as she realized that she didn’t actually know Sasha’s password. Still, it didn’t matter much. Now that she had the phone, all she had to do was get back to camp before daybreak and give Sasha her phone back!

She was going to be so proud of her, Anne was certain that she would get at least one compliment on how brave and stunning and clever she’d been. Oh, this was all paying off. And once Sasha realized the true value of her phone, she’d probably give her a second compliment too!

This had all been worth it.

Hurrying out of the den, Anne froze in place as she noticed what was right in front of her eyes.

The Mud-Man had returned.

Still, smiling confidently, Anne walked out of the den without a worry in the world, shining her light annoyingly in the face of the creature. Raising its arms in front of its face, the Mud-Man stumbled backwards.

“Yeah! How do you feel about that? I’m gonna take all my stuff and leave, what can you do about it? Nothing! Later, loser!”

Anne took about five steps forward, before a very heavy impact sounded behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, Anne felt her confidence waver as she was forced to confront an uncomfortable reality that she hadn’t considered until now.

There was more than one Mud-Man.

This new one was now standing on the roof of the den with a dangerous looking sickle in one of its hands. Rotating slowly, its eyes focused on Anne as its long, gangly legs reached down and took its first few steps towards her.

Sweeping her hand around, Anne shined her light on this new threat instead. But all that caused was give the original Mud-Man time to recover, and start on its own path towards her.

Anne took a deep breath. This is fine, this is fine. Stowing her racket away, Anne pulled out Sasha’s phone and flicked its torch on as well. With both hands extended, Anne kept a bright light on both of the monsters as she slowly walked backwards; refusing to take her eyes off either of them.

Until she bumped into something that felt an awful lot like a creature covered in mud. Once again glancing over her shoulder, Anne’s sporty reflexes kicked in just as a pointed metal spear nearly embedded itself in her skull, rolling her to safety. Anne swapped one of her lights to this Mud-Man, noting that it had four arms, and each of them contained a weapon of some kind.

And then, as she looked around, the weight of where she was started to set in.

Like a sheep wandering into the den of the wolf, she’d found herself in the heart of the pack.

From every direction, more Mud-Man started to appear. Branches that Anne had assumed were connected to the trees twisted and fell to the ground, revealing themselves as more combatants. From the pools of mud arose the Men, floating like corks to the surface. They surrounded Anne immediately, their sheer numbers making it impossible for her to escape. She must have counted at least fifty.

Spinning around on her toes, it was all Anne could to keep the monsters away with her duel light sources. Every time the light left one of them, it inched closer, a trap that was surely circling closer and closer to her.

She…she would be fine though, right? As long as she had her light, she could keep them away. She just had to hold out until morning.

“And then what?” An errant thought asked.

The sun wouldn’t reach her down here, in the mudlands. The creatures would hardly retreat at the break of dawn. And even if they did, would Anne’s phones really last that long? Her only, only chance of survival was for her friends to realize that she was missing, and soon, and rush to her rescue.

But that would doom all three of them. Three girls against dozens of armed monsters? It was hopeless.

One of the Mud-Men lunged forward, and Anne countered by ducking under its sweep and flashing the camera into its eyes. The sudden intensity stunned the entire group, if only for a split second. Hastily, it pulled back to the line, hurt.

“Hey! We…we can talk about this, can’t we? I’m sorry I took your stuff, but I really need it! I can help you find new things! Fancier things! Or…or you can take whatever you want out of my back pack. I have a lot of cool, exotic things!” Anne said, desperately. She didn’t think these things were smart enough to understand language, but who knows? They had homes, at least.

“Ex…except the music box! That’s non-negotiable, we really need that one.” Anne added.

Ducking under another swing, Anne tried to backpedal, only to wind up needing to dodge again as the Mud-Man behind her took advantage of her off-balance defence.

This wasn’t good; she was just getting more and more trapped.

There was a sudden impact to the back of Anne’s head, and for a second, she panicked, until she realized that it was simply a clump of mud that one of the Mud-Men had lobbed at her. That panic quickly resumed when another clump slammed into Sasha’s phone, covering the lens and plunging Anne’s entire left side into darkness.

Flicking it clean quickly, the now dimmer light was still powerful enough to drive away the monsters that had surged forward from the dark to attack her. But any more impacts would probably dirty the outside so much that cleaning it quickly would be impossible.

Okay. So they could do that as well.

Rotating quickly to catch the Mud-Men to her right by surprise and discourage any funny business, Anne ducked as another glob of mud sailed past her. Her phone let out a loud beep, shocking her tense figure, and glancing at it as it blinded her enemies, Anne could see the reason why.

She was running low on power.

Suppressing panic, Anne retreated to a calm, rational part of her mind. Okay. She needed a plan. A good plan. What would Sasha do?

The answer was obvious, Sasha would try diplomacy. But that had failed, so what would Sasha do next?

She’d have Anne cause a distraction while her and Marcy escaped, and then create a distraction of their own to allow Anne to escape. It was a tactic they had just developed yesterday, but seemed to work fairly well. Marcy liked to call it ‘the magician play,’ because the moment you took your eyes off any of the girls, they disappeared.

Except she needed two more people for it to work…

Her chain of thought was broken as a clump of muck slammed into her cheek, pushing her off balance, which was only exuberated by a fist extended out of the crowd and punching her in the gut.

If she could just get away from their stupid gangly limbs for a minute! She needed to think!

Wait…

A new plan formed in Anne’s head as she looked down at her own legs, at her own arms. These Mud-men, they came in all shapes and sizes, but they all shared the same lengthy limbs. They were all about as tall as Anne too. It was possible that…

But no. She’d need just a single moment when they weren’t looking at her. Just a single moment to stun them.

Like she had with the camera. Only now she had two cameras.

Her dodging was near constant now, and the Mud-Men were starting to catch her out as she stumbled and tired. It was now or never, a single last ploy to get away safely. Failing it would drain the phones of all their charge as well, turning them into useless bricks.

“Alright, you asked for it, chumps! You better not blink, I want a good picture!” Anne shouted, as she slammed her thumbs down on the screen.

A flash of light, twice as bright as before, illuminated the entire forest. For a split second, the mud pools and glowing mushrooms of this strange jungle were perfectly visible as they had never been before, until darkness returned a moment later.

And Anne was gone.

The Mud-Men froze for a second in confusion. Their prey had been right there, right in front of them, with no way to escape. It didn’t take long for them to start looking around, scanning the forest for any sign of the human, but finding nothing. There were no footprints, no far off lights, nothing. It was like she had just vanished into thin air.

Stepping forward, the original Mud-Man looked at the confused faces of its friends, before slumping down.

A faint murmur echoed across the crowd as the Mud-men’s lack of understanding only grew. A couple walked forward to the spot that Anne had once been in, as if it would help them understand what had just happened. But whatever trick the human had found, the sticky, wet ground refused to answer.

One of the Mud-Men snapped to attention as the largest of the men; the one possessing four arms, said with a confident, loud bellow, “Don’t just stand there! Fan out, find the witch! We demand flesh!”

That was all it took for all hell to break loose. Suddenly, it was a mad dash to escape the arena. Pairing off in groups of two or three, the Mud-Men scattered into the woods. Some leaping up into the trees with their powerful legs, others diving into the mud pools. And one that, for some reason, decided to head off on its lonesome back towards the river.

“Aw man, I really wanted to eat a witch today.” One of the Mud-Men said sadly, wandering away.

The lone Mud-Man stumbled as it wandered up the hill towards the more ‘civilized’ jungle, strangely unaffected by the now rising sun. Even in its direct light, even in the warmth that caused the thin shell of mud around its body to harden and crack, the Mud-Man payed no attention to the rising of the sun

Its heart beat so loudly that it could be heard from a mile away and its breath was similarly heavy. Seemingly on a mission, the creature walked without pause until it returned to the river proper. Its reflection shone up at it from the clear waters; so covered in mud that anything except its eyes were invisible. And then, unceremoniously, it fell forward into the cool water.

The river took no time to wash the mud away from the body of the creature and a moment later, Anne burst to the surface, taking a deep breath. She had been right. Covered in mud, it was impossible to tell the difference between a human and a Mud-Man. But that wasn’t important.

They had talked! They…they had a language, they could communicate, they understood what she was saying! And they had tried to eat her anyway! Shaking from something other than the cold water, Anne pulled herself back to the shore; both phones and tennis racket in hand. These couldn’t possibly be the inhabitants that Marcy was talking about, right? They were a bunch of savages, of cannibals! Anne refused to believe that they could have been friendly.

If that was the kind of person they could expect to run into in this world, then they truly were on their own. Any creature they came across was going to have to prove itself to her after an ordeal like that. Maybe Sasha had been right all along; maybe this was a disgusting world that they needed to get out of as quickly as possible.

She considered briefly not even telling her friends about the Mud-Men, before deciding against it. Marcy would love to know, and Sasha needed to know. Neither of them could really plan for the future if she was hiding things from them. Besides, what kind of friend would lie to their friends?

But all that was just noise. The important thing was, she’d done it! She’d gotten Sasha’s phone back! Oh, she was going to be so happy. Anne couldn’t’ wait to see the look on her face, she was beaming herself already.

Then she turned, and realized that she still needed to wade back through the mangrove forest.

Her smile dropped slightly as she dove right in.

Several minutes later, Anne approached the outskirts of their humble camp. And to her surprise, she could hear the voices of Sasha and Marcy, already up far earlier than usual. The realization that they know she was gone made Anne uncomfortable, but she supposed it was an inevitable feeling; even if her original plan was to quietly place Sasha’s phone around the camp somewhere for her to find later.

Drifting closer, Anne caught snippets of her friend’s conversation.

“…her bag is still here, maybe she just went for a walk.”

“I’m not discussing this with you. Anne is gone and we’re going to find her. Anne may be an idiot, but she’s not that stupid. If she left the camp, something forced her out.”

Anne furrowed her brow at Sasha’s apparent insult, but kept listening.

“Still, I’m sure she’ll be fine. She took her racket, what more do you want?”

“I want to make sure that she’s okay. You should too.”

“She’ll show up eventually.”

Having heard enough, Anne burst through the thick canopy guarding their camp, her hands wide open. “Hey, everyone! You’re all, uh, up early!”

“Anne!” Marcy shouted, practically tackling her with the force of her incoming hug. Bracing herself, Anne swept that momentum into a swing and placed her gently back on the ground where she’d started from. “Oh, you have no idea how worried I was; you shouldn’t just walk off like that! I was nearly in a panic!”

“Hey, don’t worry, I had everything under control.” Anne replied, furrowing her brow in confusion. And then she saw the face of her other friend and the smile disappeared.

“Marcy, move away.” Sasha said, with all the authority and power of a commander talking to an underling.

Eyes darting over to her, Marcy meekly obeyed.

Walking forward, Sasha’s glare felt like it was burning a hole in Anne’s head. She stopped a few feet away, and let her heavy silence do all the talking it needed to. Under Sasha’s iron will, it took no time at all for Anne’s to shatter; sending her flinching away as her friend just stared on, emotionlessly. Sasha’s chest rose and fell silently as the clock paced on; five seconds, ten seconds, twenty seconds, a full minute.

With a precision that suggested she was actually dedicating a lot of attention to holding back, Sasha raised her arm upwards, holding it in the air above her head. It shook slightly. Letting out a held breath, Anne focused on it as it simply hung there, menacingly.

Letting out her own pent up breath though, Sasha suddenly let her hand drop; seemingly not having the will power to carry through on her threat.

“Where have you been?” She asked, sternly.

Anne suddenly felt very hot, and she couldn’t explain why, “J…just down by the river.”

“I told you that we don’t go out on our own. Especially to the river.”

“Y…yeah, I know, but…”

“Are you disobeying me?”

“What, no! No!”

“Then I’ll repeat, we don’t go out alone. Here, in the camp? It’s safe. Out there, in the wilds? People get hurt.”

“So I took a little trip.”

“Don’t do that! Unless I tell you to go somewhere, just stay here!”

“I don’t see why this is such a big deal, so I went for a little walk…”

“I’m not going to lose you!” Sasha shouted directly into Anne’s face, pulling her closer, roughly and maniacally.

The air around the camp took a heavy turn; the tension weighing down on everyone as they stared at Sasha. From her perspective, all she could see was worry and fear.

Easing off of Anne, Sasha took a step back. “You understand?” She said, refusing to say something as simple as ‘sorry.’

Breaking eye contact, Anne rubbed her arm nervously. “No, I…I understand. This is a stressful situation, for all of us, but you especially. I get it. I’m sorry.”

Taking a deep breath, Sasha nodded, before letting the tension in her shoulders drop. “What am I going to do with you, Anne? Why can’t you be more like Marcy? All you have to do is follow my instructions. I’m trying to keep you safe.”

“I know that.”

“Then why…couldn’t you just stay in the camp?” Sasha asked, before continuing, “Is…is it my fault? Anne, I just…”

“You’re doing great, Sasha.”

“Then why?”

“It’s just…I couldn’t bear to lose my phone. And I imagine that you feel the same way, even if you won’t admit it.”

Looking up, Anne swallowed roughly in an attempt to chase the water from her eyes. “I mean, I just think, if it was me…”

“It’s just a stupid phone, Anne.”

Shaking her head, Anne chased the point, “But is it? Sure, my phone is full of nonsense and unimportant junk. Like cat videos, or episodes of my favourite shows, or mobile games, but it’s also full of things that I…couldn’t imagine losing. Not here.”

Handing the phone back to Sasha, Anne smiled, “Things like…pictures of my mom. I don’t know how long we’ll be here, but if I lost my phone, I’d never see her again until we did. I didn’t realize until today that I’d started to forget what she looked like. The thought of actually forgetting terrifies me. And my cat, she’s so cute in those pictures; I just want to hold her again for a single minute. Old Thai recipes, messages from friends and family, even silly little bookmarks, they’re all snapshots of Earth. Of home.”

“And I know Sasha is the same.” Anne said, turning to Marcy, “I know that, on her phone, are those same pictures, those same mementos, those same little reminders of home, acting as anchors to our memories. They keep home fresh and alive in our hearts. Her memories are just as preserved as mine.”

“In a way, that phone is the only thing we have to remind us of home. To keep us focused on getting back some day. And to lose it so carelessly, without even trying to get it back? It’s like losing all that without a fight.”

“Do I…do I sound crazy?” Anne asked, suddenly unsure of herself. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is just a way to pass the time before bed now. I never should have put myself in such danger; I nearly died getting this stupid thing back. I’ll tell you all about the Mud-Men later, Marcy.”

There was an uncharacteristic stunned silence from Sasha, different from the weighty quiet she’d used earlier. Taking her eyes off Anne, Sasha quietly pumped her password into the phone and flicked her finger down, apparently scrolling. She paused once she reached what she seemed to be looking for, and for the probably the first time since they were children, Anne saw Sasha’s eyes water.

“Wow, are you crying, Sash?” Marcy asked.

Gripping the phone tightly, Sasha immediately went on the defensive. “N…no! Shut up! B…both of you turn around, right now!”

Chuckling to herself, which only made Sasha blush harder, Marcy spun around until she couldn’t see the raw emotional release that her friend was undergoing. Matching her, Anne glanced at Marcy.

Not that it helped Sasha feel any better. She was too emotional today, stupid Anne was running roughshod all over her heart. Taking an uneven, shaky breath, Sasha rushed to the other side of the camp, far away from the others. She just needed a moment of peace, a moment to find her centre again. Yet her eyes kept drifting down to her phone, down to the few photos she had of her and her mother.

And a moment of peace wasn’t something that Anne was willing to give her either. The sound of her approach was impossible for Sasha to ignore.

“I…I said get away from me!” Sasha shouted, waving recklessly for Anne to leave.

“It’s okay, Sasha. I know how you feel.”

“You’re not supposed to see me like this.” Sasha said simply.

“It’s hard, I know. But you’re not alone. You have me and Marcy by your side, every step of the way. There’s no shame in missing home, after all, it’s what drives us back.”

“Argh! You’re right. I…I miss my mom.”

“It’s okay to let it out. I miss my mom too.”

Reaching her arms out, Sasha was the one who took the initiative and leapt into Anne’s waiting hug. Grasping her tightly, she rested her head on Anne’s shoulder and let out a heaving sob. In return, Anne felt her own eyes start to water, until she too was bawling. Memories of her mom sprouted to the forefront of her mind; times she had taken Anne to the park as a child, the taste of her traditional cooking, birthday parties, sleepover with friends, the happy times and the sad times, mixing together until they overwhelmed her senses.

Anne wasn’t sure how long it took for the two of them to calm down, but she thanked Marcy for being patient with them. Sniffling, she pulled away from Sasha, who initially tried to hold her longer, before admitting that enough time had passed. Holding her at arm’s length, Anne gave a weak smile through the lines on her face. Sasha replied with one of her own.

Both were thrown off guard as Marcy tossed herself into the hug, separating the two. Giving them both a squeeze, she stepped back and seamlessly inserted herself into the circle.

“Well, are you both done crying?” She asked.

“You don’t feel like crying too?” Anne asked back.

“Nah. I’m not very emotional. Plus I…don’t have any pictures of family on my phone.”

Anne and Sasha glared at her, tears still in their eyes. Throwing herself at Marcy’s side, Anne pulled her into the hug. “That’s so sad, Mar-Mar!”

Sasha joined her on the other side. “You should still feel a little sad.”

Arms above her head, Marcy chuckled awkwardly. “No, seriously, I’m fine, guys. I don’t need to ‘let it out’ or anything.”

They stayed there, to Marcy’s annoyance, for another few minutes, before Sasha found her senses again and backed away. “Alright.” She said, sniffling. “Enough tears. Back to work, everyone.”

“You sure?”

Standing taller, Sasha wiped her face and put her emotional mask back on. “Super sure. You wanna get home so badly? Then we gotta get started on this day. Now get it together.”

Marching forward, Sasha pulled the trio ahead, each of them already understanding where she was going. Back to the river, to clean up from the night’s mess and discuss their plans for the future.

Pulling up beside her, Sasha let out a smile at Anne.

“Hey Anne?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for getting my phone back. I…appreciate it.”

“Hey, what are friends for, am I right?”

And with that said, the three newly invigorated girls were more ready to face the jungle than they’d ever been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A chance encounter opens the door towards new friends, if only Sasha can find the right words to befriend them. It’s a test of just how silver her tongue can be, with a delicious end for all of them if she’s not up to the challenge.  
> Next time, Sasha the Beast, watch for it!


	5. Sasha the Beast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chance encounter opens the door towards new friends, if only Sasha can find the right words to befriend them. It’s a test of just how silver her tongue can be, with a delicious end for all of them if she’s not up to the challenge.

On the outskirts of Wartwood, which was itself a very minor village with little fame to its name, there existed a similarly small, unimportant bar called ‘Stumpy’s Diner.’ Which was, obviously, run by a man by the name of Stumpy. Now, there was something very important about Stumpy that was immediately obvious to anyone who looked at him, and it wasn’t the fact that he only had one hand, hence the name.

He was a frog.

As were all his patrons.

But don’t be confused. Unlike the frogs of Earth, Stumpy was a sophisticated frog. He spoke with an admittedly rough voice, but speak he did. He wore clothes, he walked on two feet, he cooked food, he cleaned dishes. He was, for all intents and purposes, a man, troubled by many of the troubles that a man (or frog) of his profession would have.

But he’s not important to this story.

The frog we should be focusing on is Wally, local bard and patron of the arts. And loon.

Stepping out into the fresh, cold night air, Wally gave a friendly wave to Stumpy as he exited the building. In his hands was his trusted accordion, a musical instrument that he never left home without. Glancing over at two more frogs enjoying the night together, Wally gave them a wave as well.

“Good night you frogs.” He said, hopping forward onto a nearby rock and deciding to walk the perilous path away from the diner. The diner itself was surrounded by a small moat of icky green water, with only a trail of rocks leading to its welcoming entrance.

“See you in the morrow!” Wally shouted, tripping suddenly as he pulled his attention away from the road in front of him. With a loud crash, he went face first into the water, its oily taste filling his mouth as he bobbed back to the surface. The first thing he heard was the uproarious laughter of the two frogs he’d just said his good byes too, followed by a wet squelch as he climbed back onto the rocks. Spitting out the water, he smiled.

He’d always been a bit of a cardacious clown; a little bit of slapstick would bother him none.

Jumping onto solid land, this being a well-built but poorly maintained stone road, Wally began his journey back to Wartwood proper, ready to catch a good night’s sleep and with enough fresh thoughts to write a new song.

It would take him less than a couple minutes.

The moon shone above him brightly, a deep red as he walked along the path. The smell of oncoming rain, the feel of the stone beneath his feet, the sound of nature, it all swelled within him as he wandered.

Surely there was no harm in playing a little ditty right here?

Pumping his hands back and forth, the sound of his accordion echoed through the jungle as he hummed to himself a folk song of his own creation.

And then there was a sound that was quite out of place. The cracking of a twig underfoot.

Stopping immediately, Wally spun around, searching for the source of the noise. There was another crack behind him, and Wally once again twisted around hastily, just in time to see something hurry back into the shades of the tree. Something far larger than the usual insects outside Wartwood.

“Who…who’s there?” Wally shouted into the void.

He was walking backwards now, unable to tear his eyes from the trees around him. Just out sight, something was moving with an inhuman grace. Like a shadow, it leapt from tree to tree, always just hiding from vision.

“I’m warning you, I taste terrible! I haven’t showered in two weeks! Old family trick.”

His blood froze as more sounds rose from around him, most noticeably, the shifting and creaking of the bush directly behind him. Unable to look, but unable to do anything else, Wally slowly glanced over his shoulder.

A monster stood there.

Tall, gangly, with a hideous bump in the middle of its face. Its jaw nearly split into a maddening smile as it looked down at the helpless creature. Its hair was brown, and covered in leaves and sticks, no doubt to help it camouflage and ambush poor frogs like himself.

“No no no no no!” Wally shouted, as the thing reached out towards him with one of its disgusting limbs.

“No!” He cried, loud enough to shake the trees. The creature paused, seemingly stunned, which was all the time Wally needed to sprint past it into the woods himself. The thing turned to watch it go, its eyes glowing red in the light of the moon.

Anne watched as the silly little creature ran away. “No, wait! I just want to talk! I’m not dangerous!” She shouted, but if the little frog could hear her, it didn’t stop its escape into the wilds.

Waiting for a moment, Anne shrugged. The memories of the mud-men were fresh in her mind. That thing probably wanted to eat her anyway, it mentioned something about taste before it broke down in tears.

Still, it had an accordion.

That wasn’t just some rock tied to a stick, you needed a lot of knowledge to build an accordion. You needed rubber, and blueprints, and so many other things that suggested, well, civilization.

But that was ridiculous. She’d been up the mountain; there was no civilization in the valley.

“Anne!” Sasha shouted from a distance away, “Hold tight, we’re coming! Just hold on!”

Practically sliding in front of Anne when her abrupt stop failed, Sasha leapt into a battle pose, club at the ready. From behind, Sasha slithered up to Anne’s back, a makeshift sling in her hand, pre-loaded. Marcy was not very good with her sling, on account of making it last night, but insisted on using it anyway, something Sasha disliked since it had nearly taken her head off earlier.

“I heard an unmistakably girlish scream, are you okay?” Sasha asked, her eyes darting around the woods, looking for any sign of danger. It occurred to her that an attack could also come from above or below, and adjusted her sight accordingly.

The giant daffodils that grew here waved gently in the wind as Anne tried to explain.

“N…no, wait, you don’t understand!” She said, pointing rapidly towards the escape route of the ugly frog.

“He’s over there?” Marcy asked, badly shooting a rock way off target and embedding it into a malleable tree trunk further into the wilds.

“No, no, there was a frog!”

“Oh.” Sasha said, letting out a sigh of relief. Letting her guard down and lowering her weapon, she backtracked back to Marcy, who was similarly calming down. “Anne just got a little spooked by a cute lil frog. You know how she gets around amphibians.”

Reloading her sling, Marcy nodded her head while Anne shook hers.

“There was more than that. The…the frog was talking! It was a talking frog!”

Sasha and Marcy glanced at each other, pursing their lips, before Marcy let out a little giggle that was impossible to ignore. Sasha responded with one of her own, a smile spreading across her face as her innocent giggle turned into a subdued chuckle.

“What? What’s so funny? He was blue! Or, er, greenish.” Anne said, confused.

Marcy turned away, covering her mouth to hide her expression from Anne, while Sasha made no such attempt to hide her amusement.

“A talking frog, Anne?” Sasha said, mockingly.

“What’s so ridiculous about a talking frog?”

Marcy lost control over her joy and burst into an outright laugh. Struggling to stop, she was forced to take a few steps to get away from the source of her humour. Furrowing her brow, Anne grit her teeth as she watched her walk away. They didn’t believe her, and the thought made her grow red in the face. Giving her very little time to justify her argument, Sasha grinned at her friend, clearly happy with how everything was playing out.

“It’s a talking frog, Anne.” Sasha repeated.

“No, you don’t understand! He…he had a little hat, and an accordion, but only one eye! And he was singing a tune as he walked down the road! I’m serious, I saw a talking frog, but he panicked when he saw me and ran into the woods! We…we need to find him!”

“A little hat!” Marcy shouted, keeling over.

Anne paused for a moment as she considered her own words, and realized how they must have sounded to someone who had no context for what she’d just seen.

“I sound crazy, don’t I?”

“Anne, I really need you to drink this for me, right now.” Sasha said, passing a plastic bottle over to Anne while regaining her composure. The levity had done wonders for the tension growing in her body, but she still had a responsibility to care for her friends, especially here.

“What is it?”

“Water. You must be so dehydrated right now; it’s hard to tell because this place is so moist.”

“I’m not…I didn’t make this up, I saw a frog! If…if we follow the road, maybe we’ll find more! Maybe we’ll find a town, like Marcy said.”

“Anne, just drink the water.”

Begrudgingly, Anne took the bottle and drained it. All the water here tasted distinctly of mud and it was a taste that Anne still hadn’t gotten used to. The worst part was having tiny particles get stuck in your teeth and needing to suck them out over the course of the day.

Wait, when was the last time Anne had brushed her teeth?

“Feeling better?” Sasha asked, breaking her chain of thought.

“M…maybe, but still, the road! I’m not crazy!”

Grabbing both of her friends roughly, Anne pulled them over to the cobblestone road. It wasn’t much to talk about, but against the constant mud and slime of the jungle, it was the cleanest thing that the girls had ever seen. The rocks practically glowed in the moonlight, giving the entire path an otherworldly appearance, as if it was the path to things even stranger than the girls had seen yet. Or maybe it was just the surrealism of having their understanding of the world being suddenly shattered.

“Oh wow, this is a road.” Marcy commented, stepping out of the growth’s around its sides, covering her pants in early-night dew, and walking onto the path proper. Off to the side, Sasha kept a wary eye out for anyone approaching, even though she doubted they would.

Mouth hanging open, she traced the trail’s path forward, then backwards, before finally looking down at the stones beneath her feet.

Getting down on all fours, Marcy ran her hands over them.

Anne stepped forward in surprise. She knew that look on Marcy’s face. It was the same kind of look that had enraptured her on their first day out in Amphibia, the kind that had inspired her to start writing the Amphipedia and cataloguing the world around her. Marcy wanted to know everything she could about this; a mystery for which she had no answer.

“Marcy, what are you doing?”

“Just…” She rubbed the tips of her fingers against the rocks, “Feel how smooth these are. That’s not natural, that’s stone carving. Someone cut these stones specifically for this path.”

She paused for a second, and then leaned her face down lower. Anne raised a hand in worry as her head went down, down towards the stone. Sticking her tongue out, Marcy hovered over the grimy, filth covered rocks. She wasn’t going to actually…

Luckily, Sasha grabbed the back of Marcy’s head and pulled her up, her tongue still sticking out.

“Too weird?” Marcy asked innocently, smiling.

“Just a tad. Stop being so weird.” Sasha replied.

“I just thought…never mind.” Marcy said, standing back up. “Sasha, can we stay and…”

“No.”

“But just for a…”

“I said no!”

“Aw.”

“Look, we’ve been out for too long anyway. You can blame Anne for that. We need to get back to the camp as soon as possible.”

Looking down the road, Anne watched as Marcy sighed, and she knew why, because she was thinking the exact same thing. They were on the verge of something big, something unknown. The road winded on temptingly, its secrets potentially only a few minutes away. If they only had a little more time, only had a little more safety to spend, they could find the answers they wanted.

Anne could be proven right about the frog.

But Sasha’s argument made sense, like they always did. Sasha was always right, she always knew exactly what to say.

Physically climbing back into the mildew covered growths, careful not to crush any of the mushrooms growing against the bases of the nearby trees, Sasha and Marcy returned to their usual level of seriousness.

“Alright, Anne, let’s head off.” Sasha said, pushing her to the front of the group and giving her a little shove to send her stumbling forward as a proper indication to begin the trek home.

“I just hope he’s okay…” Anne said quietly, staring into the overgrown jungle. “Do you think we should look for him, it’s dangerous around this time to be alone.”

Sasha cocked her head to the side, “Who? What are you talking about?”

“The frog. He just ran into the jungle.”

Sasha shot Marcy a look of amusement. “Oh, of course. The frog. I’m sure the little fella will be fine, Anne. After all, frogs live in jungles.” She said, condescendingly.

“But still, what if he gets hurt? It would be my fault, I’m the one who scared him!”

“Anne, has anyone ever told you that you’re too kind for your own good? You’re gonna get yourself hurt one day.” Sasha said, fully aware that she’d actually told Anne that multiple times before.

“I dunno, I think we should do it.” Marcy said, taking Anne’s side in the argument for once.

“What?” Sasha added, spinning around to face Marcy, “why?”

“This is exactly how Tales of Tails 5 started. Have I ever told you about that series? Okay, so listen, at the start of the game…”

Sasha put her entire hand over Marcy’s mouth. “Okay, so it’s a stupid game thing.” Sasha said, clearly growing impatient.

Standing up taller, Sasha took charge. Just the sight of her put Anne’s confidence to the test, Sasha rarely had a look like that in her eyes unless she disappointed with both of them. Anne opened her mouth to try and defuse the situation before it started, but Sasha spoke first.

“Alright, both of you, listen. I can appreciate being a good Samaritan and caring for the weak and all that, you know how much of a kind, generous person I am. But it’s dangerous, we’re far from home, it’s late, and I’m not going to waste any further time running around looking for something I’m not convinced even exists. Now Anne, I want you to stop all this nonsense about ‘talking frogs’ and take lead as we head back to camp. And Marcy, when I remove my hand, if I hear the word ‘tails’ mentioned once, I’m confiscating the Amphipedia for a week. Understand?”

Marcy nodded weakly.

Sasha slowly removed her hand and smiled when Marcy didn’t say a word.

“Good. Now if we’re all in agreement, let’s go home already!” Sasha said, throwing her hands up and pushing Anne into the front of the line again. As expected, Anne pulled out her phone and flicked the torch on so that she could lead the way back towards safety.

Stumbling into the camp, the trio didn’t even bother to kindle a fire before wandering exhausted over to the sleeping troughs. Throwing her bag into the middle platform that had formed naturally, Anne sunk into her position without a word, keeping her head out of the mud until Marcy did the same; also placing her book on the platform.

Sasha, possessing far less personal belongings, spared the girls a simple glance before climbing down into the hole with them.

Anne’s legs ached, and it wasn’t just from the bruises. They had started to heal, but newer, fresher ones were always finding ways onto her body. Sasha was right, she was too kind. Half of the new ones were from going out of her way to help her friends.

She wondered how Sasha was holding up. Her injuries were much worse, but it didn’t seem like they were bothering her.

Speaking of her friends, despite her tired body, a question sprung to her mind, something that had been bothering her for a while now.

Settling into a comfortable position, Anne idly picked a centipede off her arm and tossed it across the camp. And she only freaked out a little, a huge improvement from her first day here. The relative silence of the marsh washed over the camp as the three girls closed their eyes, content to seize any remaining time to sleep that they could.

Unnoticed to the others, Sasha raised her hand, open palmed. Closing each finger, she counted down from five. And when she hit zero…

“Hey girls?” Anne asked, innocently.

“Yes, Anne?” Sasha asked, sighing.

“Do you…trust me?”

“Of course I do.” Marcy replied, instantly.

Sasha took a moment longer, perhaps confused that Anne would even need to ask.

“You’ve already saved my life multiple times now. Of course we trust you!”

“…then, why don’t either of you believe me?”

Neither of the girls responded nearly as quickly. Unknown to Anne, Sasha shared a quick look with Marcy, before twisting her body back into a good sleeping position. Words were already running out of her mouth as she settled in.

“Is this about the frog? Look, maybe you’re right. Maybe there is a talking frog running around out there, it’s not that big a deal. In the morning, we’ll follow that path, see where it leads. If you’re right, you’re right.”

“It’s not about the frog.” Anne said, sitting up, which is how the girls knew that this was actually a big deal. “It’s about the box.”

Sitting up herself, Sasha spun around to face her friend. “What about it?”

“I…I didn’t break it.”

“Hm?”

“When we first arrived, you said I broke it. That I’d have to make up for breaking it and stranding us here.” Looking down, Anne rubbed her arm, “But…but I didn’t do anything. It’s not my fault. The box was already out of power when I picked it up.”

“Is that still worrying you?” Sasha asked.

Anne’s reluctance to look Sasha in the eyes betrayed her answer, even if she couldn’t find the strength to admit it to Sasha directly.

“Oh, Anne…” Sasha said, placing a hand on her shoulder and, when that failed to inspire enough confidence to make her look back up, gently grabbed her chin and forced her face up, “Neither of us are going to judge, or think less of you, because you broke it.”

“But I didn’t break…” Anne shouted, before Sasha put her hand over Anne’s mouth, like she had Marcy only an hour prior.

“It’s okay to make mistakes. Marcy’s not gonna get mad at you for it, you can stop worrying.” Twisting over, she smiled at her other friend, “Right, dude?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah! Think of it this way, Anne, if you hadn’t broken it, I wouldn’t be having such a great time.”

“We’re only human.” Sasha said, “And you’ve been our friend since kindergarten. What kind of person would we be if we looked down on you for what’s natural? If we ignored all the good you’ve done for us already because of one mistake?”

Silenced, Anne could only break eye contact with Sasha once again, focusing on the ground in front of her as Sasha’s words wormed their way into her head. As the poisoned her thoughts and twisted her world around.

Sasha…Sasha was right. There was no reason to be ashamed of breaking the box. She hadn’t! But if she had, it wasn’t like it was a bad thing. It wasn’t like her friends would hate her for having done so. If she had.

“Anne, I say this without exaggeration. You might be the best friend to ever exist, ever. You do what I say without complaining, you always help Marcy no matter what, even if it hurts, you’re generous to us, you’re friendly. Nobody could ask for a better friend. Don’t let something like this get you down.”

And so long as she was sorry about it, and worked to fix it, she could still be a good friend. It didn’t matter if she broke the box or not, that didn’t affect how good a friend she was. That’s…that’s all she really wanted, in the end. To be a good friend.

But why did friendship always have to hurt so much?

“Like you said, you can make up for it later. You’re a hard worker, one day, you’ll find the exact thing to do that makes it all equal.”

Just once, she wanted to hang out with Sasha without her constantly beating against that wall of friendship in her mind; without her pushing it further and further back while her pride screamed at her from behind it. But that would make her a bad friend, wouldn’t it? And she really didn’t want to be a bad friend. Especially here! They couldn’t fight here, they needed to band together!

“Now come on. It’s already late, and I’m tired. How many more times do I have to tell you how valuable you are to me, and how much I love you, before you learn to accept it as true?” Sasha finished, removing her hand.

Awkwardly, Anne looked back up, but broke away her gaze once again. “You’re…you’re right, Sasha. You’re always right.”

“I am. Now come, lay back down so I can get to sleep already. I assume you don’t have any more questions?”

“N…no.”

“Sweet! Then get down, girl.”

Spinning around and falling gently onto Marcy’s stomach, Anne grunted as Sasha did the same to her, sans ‘gently.’

It only took her friends a couple of minutes to fall asleep, the long journey having tired them out far more than usual. For Anne though, who’s mind was still burning with shame and all the things she didn’t say, it took far longer.

Maybe she had broken the box. She wasn’t entirely sure, it was possible. She’d lost her grip on it when they arrived, maybe something had happened.

Shaking her head, Anne tried to fall into a restful sleep, but plummeted head first into a restless one instead. Hopefully, tomorrow would be a simple day, one that wouldn’t require her to think or work too hard.

Waking up early, Sasha slide out of the triangle, being careful not to wake Anne as well. Stretching, she groaned as the mud clung to her bare back, the entire behind of her shirt having been torn to shreds ages ago. Marcy really needed to hurry up and make her some new clothes, this was getting intolerable.

At least the cold mud felt good on her bruises.

Or they needed to find a proper bed. Would Anne object to her using Anne’s towel as a sheet every time they went to bed? Sure, she could just force her to give it up, but it wasn’t very fair. Push too far and her friends might start to push back. And she couldn’t let that happen. The only way they were getting through this was together, and anything to preserve that fragile unity she was barely keeping together, she would take.

Stomach rumbling, Sasha got an early start to breakfast, pulling a delicious root that Marcy had discovered was edible out of the stockpile and snacking down. The overpowering taste of nut filled her mouth and she took a quick sip from her water bottle to wash it down while she waited for the others to wake.

Her back let out a sudden burst of pain and she hunched over; glancing over at the sleeping girls hastily to make sure that they didn’t see it. Forcing herself to stand upright, Sasha swallowed the pain. She wiped some drool from her grit teeth, before taking a deep breath.

After about half an hour, the others were up, and another half hour later, they were well-fed and gathered around the river, as was usual.

Watching the other two, Sasha just thought.

She’d been doing a lot of thinking lately. If anything, her worries consumed her more than the momentary joys of being with her friends. She’d started jumping at shadows recently. But she had to persist. She had to consider every possibility, no matter how many of them ended in a grim end for them. It was only through considering them that she could prevent them. The girls were trusting in her to think of a plan that would keep them safe, and she couldn’t fail them. She wouldn’t!

But looking at Anne, and imaging her hurt, because of Sasha’s own failure…

God, she needed a break from all this. The weight in her chest was starting to choke her lungs.

Flinching as Anne surprised her with a sudden shout, Sasha gave a quick thumbs up as she walked closer.

“Alright, boss, what’s the plan for today?”

She ran over what she’d already considered. Anne would need to go with Marcy, Sasha herself could hold down the camp for a couple hours until they got back. She hoped. She just couldn’t let one of them go out alone. Part of her wished that a fourth friend had been whisked away too, just so they could pair up better. Before she realized how terrible that sounded; wanting to trap someone else here just for a little convenience.

Standing up, Sasha put on a bold face and threw her arm around Anne’s shoulder, suppressing a wince.

“You know that road we saw last night? I want you and Marcy to find out where it leads. If you run into anything, don’t get into a fight. Don’t investigate it. I don’t want a repeat of the mud-man incident or the Bullfrog incident, got it?”

“Got it.”

“If you find a…a town or something, come back to camp, tell me, we’ll make plans to peacefully introduce ourselves. The last thing we need is whatever lives around here thinking we’re monsters.”

Anne, quick wit that she was, noticed what was off immediately. “Wait, you’re not coming with us?”

“Just for a couple of hours. I’m going to stay at the camp.”

“What, why?”

“Because I said so. Don’t worry about it.” Sasha replied.

In actuality, her legs were killing her. She was sporty, yes, but she wasn’t superhuman. She’d pushed her body too far, and it felt like she was falling apart. If she went with them, she was liable to just collapse on the way there, and that would put them all in danger. Better for everyone if she stayed behind.

All she needed was a rest, just a couple hours to let her body recuperate.

Of course, she couldn’t just admit this to the girls. They were counting on her to be their stoic, reliable rock. If she showed signs that this world was starting to get to her, there confidence and morale would collapse. Plus, they might ask for a rest of their own, and she couldn’t grant that. The road needed to be investigated immediately. And on a better note, she couldn’t let them see her this weak.

If they saw how weak she really was, they wouldn’t respect her. They would use it against her! She couldn’t let that happen, that was the worst case scenario. Never let them sense weakness, Sasha.

She realized that she had been talking this entire time.

“…I’ll be fine, Anne. You know me, nothing is going to get me down. I’m trusting you to keep Marcy safe, okay? Even if we were all together, it’s not like we’re just gonna wander into the village as soon as we find it. Now come on, let’s head back to camp.”

Returning to their new home, Sasha helped the others pack what small supplies they might need; confiscating Marcy’s sling just to be safe. Everything was going to be fine, hopefully.

Sasha watched her friends leave, a deep fear settling into her gut. She’d thought that maybe watching them go would help alleviate it, but all it did was replace it with new worries. Not knowing what they were doing was nearly as bad as knowing.

Turning around, Sasha fell to her knees, and then to her chest.

She’d need an excuse for what she was actually doing, but she could think of one later. Closing her eyes, Sasha let her body relax naturally, sinking into a comfortable, shallow sleep. When she woke up, she’d be back in top form, just like she needed.

Sasha couldn’t say how long had passed before something snapped her out of her daydream induced peace.

The sound of approach was unmistakable.

Anne had said, on their first day here, that the camp was the perfect place to hide for exactly this reason. That the growth was so thick, and so dry, and so encompassing, that nothing would be able to approach them without their knowledge. And she had been right. On four occasions, they had been forced to retreat or otherwise defend their camp, and they had been prepared for it every time. In that regard, Sasha could admit that Anne had been right.

Grabbing her spear, Sasha shuffled backwards, grabbing one of the large leaves they used as roofing and pulling it down to use as cover instead. Not to protect her, of course, but merely to hide her from whatever was coming.

Poking forward with her finger, Sasha stabbed two eye holes into the leaf, already committing to replacing it later. Silence was important, silence was key. Holding her breath, Sasha waited for whatever was approaching to enter the camp proper. If it was small enough to handle herself, a simple Rattleworm or one of the lesser bugs, she was prepared to lunge out and destroy it without mercy.

And if it was too big for her to handle alone, well…

None of the girls were part of the running team at school, but each of them could leave those students in the dust by now.

A bead of sweat ran down Sasha’s temple as she waited. The cracking, shifting sound of approach grew louder, until eventually, the creature broke into the camp; tearing apart the vines that worked as an effective barrier against the world.

It froze in place as it looked around, stunned.

“Hey, over here, I found something interesting!”

It was a frog.

“Sweet beans, Anne was telling the truth.” Sasha said to herself.

This frog was rather unremarkable. It wore only a simple vest, and nothing more. It’s green skin was coated in a thin sheen of mucus and its eyes darted from left to right hastily. In one of its hands, it held a pitchfork, although admittedly, the fork part was stylized to look like a webbed foot.

Sasha considered her options.

She could run away. But why run from a single frog? It was hardly up to her waist. And even if there was another frog or two, she could probably still just handle them herself. Her time surviving would no doubt give her an edge against some slimy frogs, and she was far stronger than them anyway. It would be easy.

But…

If what Anne said was true, these frogs weren’t really dangerous. If anything, they were ‘intelligent,’ as ridiculous as that sounded (because how could a frog really compare to an actual person?) If she could wrap them around her finger, they’d be back home in no time. How easy would it be to find some glowing gemstones if she had a couple helpers who knew their way around the forest?

And she didn’t want to sour future relations by hurting them either. She…she should talk to them! If she explained her situation, surely they would agree to help her, even without her manipulations! This was a good plan, how could it backfire?

Stepping out from behind the leaf and leaving her spear behind, Sasha gave the frog a friendly wave and a toothy smile.

The frog took one look at her and screamed at the top of its lungs; turning white while pointing at her like she was a hideous monster. The sudden cry made Sasha jump, and let out a scream of her own.

Oh right. She forgot that they were terrified of her.

Waving her arms in front of her, Sasha closed the gap between them. Which, in hindsight, only scared the frog more. “No no no, I just want to talk! Stop screaming, I just wanna talk.”

The frog predictably ignored her.

“I found the beast! I found it!”

The frog hastily scanned over its shoulder, before snapping back to Sasha. Trading vision between the two points rapidly, he eventually cowered backwards as Sasha took a few more tentative steps towards her, her arms stretched out passively.

“I’m…I’m not a beast, see? Just…stop screaming for a second, geeze!”

In its panic, the frog swung its weapon down at Sasha’s head. She caught it easily, ripping it out of the frogs hand and spinning it around so that the pointy end was now pointing at its former owner. He still showed no signs of calming.

This wasn’t working like Sasha thought it would.

She needed a better plan than this. Needed some time to think of one. Maybe if Anne or Marcy were here, she could use them as an example of how they were harmless, or only looked scary? Or maybe they could just kidnap one frog and explain to them what was going on, once they calmed down.

Or maybe she could just track the frogs down later and demand to see their leader, he’d probably be more understanding. Anne and Marcy were probably in their village already. Yeah, that was a good idea. Drive away this frog and track down their leader later for a proper talk.

If she could dig her claws into someone like that…

Focusing on the frog in front of her, Sasha smiled.

“Go on. Get out of here. It’s almost time for lunch anyway, I don’t have time to deal with you. Bring back someone more important.” Sasha said jokingly, jabbing the blunt end of her weapon into the frog’s stomach.

“You heard her, she admitted it! She wants to eat us, just like Wally said!”

“What?” Sasha said, dumbfounded. Sure, she’d prefer to eat a frog instead of a bug, but she wouldn’t eat anything that could talk back.

“There it is! Get it!” The frog in front of her shouted, pointing directly at her.

Almost immediately, two frogs lunged out of the tree line at her, a length of rope shared between their hands. If it hadn’t been for her quick cheerleader reflexes, they probably would have wrapped it around her chest in no time.

Luckily, thinking quick, Sasha twisted her pitchfork sideways, catching both frogs in mid-air. With a simple twist, she rendered the rope useless and tossed them to the ground, where they landed with a splat.

Her arms screamed at her to slow down as she kept them extended in front of her.

“Listen, frea…friends. Just go home, I don’t want to fight anyone!”

The three frogs shared a glance, before nodding. Letting her guard down, content that they understood, Sasha was once again shocked as they shouted, “Now!”

Two more frogs suddenly burst out from the undergrowth, with more rope in their hands. Sasha quickly grabbed one, but the other looped the rope around her hand and pulled; throwing her off balance as a sixth frog jumped on her back, weighing her down until she fell onto her face.

And then they were upon her. Nine, twelve, fifteen, each one well prepared with torches, pitchforks and rope. Luckily, only the last one was used on Sasha, binding her limbs together and to her sides and restraining her completely. In a couple of seconds, she was helpless; wrapped up in so much rope that she looked more like she was encased in a cocoon. Even her ponytail was tied to something else, and she couldn’t see what.

Wiggling from side to side, Sasha’s face contorted in anger. “What the hell! Let me out of here, untie me, right now!”

The frogs ignored her.

They were ignoring her!

What…what do you do when someone ignores you?

Sasha thought for a moment.

“Um…hello? I’m still here. Just, uh, tied up a little. Hello?”

There was no response. Sasha felt herself start to shake. “Hey, I’m talking to you!”

No wait, something else was shaking her. There was a deep rumble as something big approached the camp; the kind of rumble that sent warning bells off in Sasha’s head. She struggled harder, but failed to free herself. This was bad, this was really bad. Something that big was actually dangerous!

The frogs wouldn’t be enough to handle something like that, right? They were going to flee, she just knew it, and if she was still tied up when they did…

Rolling over, Sasha focused on the gang of frogs, who were strangely calm about the approaching monster.

“W…wait! Please, you need to untie me right now! I can…I can fight that thing! Isn’t that what you want?”

“Oh, that’s just the Mayor.”

“What?” Sasha said, dumbly.

“Well, well, it looks like the monster has finally been subdued.” A large toad said, walking into the camp like he owned the place. Which was, as Sasha suspected, how he walked everywhere, regardless of ownership. He certainly had enough gold hanging off him to make it seem like it was warranted. He was nearly three times larger than the other frogs, but that still only put him up to Sasha’s shoulders. But this was still her camp, and the sight made her blood boil.

Sasha wondered if it was real gold. She wondered if she could convince Anne to steal it later.

“And remember, it was all thanks to me, Mayor Toadstool. Keeping this town safe is just what I do folks, remember that at the booths this week.” He said, literally resting on his laurels as he crushed them in his hurry to sit down on Sasha’s seat. “Because ‘Toadstool Cares.’” He added, pointing to a large sign that his lackey was carrying.

Sasha watched all this with a bit of disbelief. Holy hell was that a terrible slogan. Sasha could think of, like, nine better ones off the top of her head. Like ‘Toadstool is no fool.’ Now there was a good slogan, straight and catchy.

Wait, what was she doing again?

A froggy foot falling near her head snapped her back to reality, and the situation she’d found herself in. Oh, right. Redoubling her efforts, Sasha squirmed in place, the ropes being more than enough to hold her in place.

“T…Toadstool, you’re in charge, right? There’s been a terrible mistake here…” Sasha said, twisting her head around so that she could focus on the overgrown toad.

“I’ll say. Why, we nearly let a dangerous beast just wander around our jungles, free to prey on our tadpoles and endanger our livestock. It’s a good thing Wally ran into you when he did. I bet you’re the same monster that ate old McGucket’s prized Henworm.”

“I’m not a monster! Or a…a beast! I can talk, doesn’t that mean anything? Look, how about you guys just untie me and we can talk about this?”

“Oh ho, you won’t be tricking us that easily. You’re gonna be staying in those bonds all night.”

“Oh. Okay.” Sasha said, trying and failing to shrug. It was fine. She could probably talk her way out of a jail cell if she needed, which she assumed they were planning to take her to.

She just hoped that Anne and Marcy didn’t get the wrong idea or anything. Anne could be…very rash at times; her phone was a testament to that.

More frogs burst into the camp as Sasha lay there, straining to get a good view of all of them while keeping her eyes out of the sun. They came in all colours, filling her vision with a kaleidoscope.

Staring at each other, the frogs gave Sasha a little kick, sending a jolt of pain through her body, before shrugging.

“So…uh…what do we do now?”

Sasha would have slapped her forehead if she could. These frogs were so clueless, how had they managed to subdue her?

Oh right, she was already weak.

“We can’t just leave it here. What if it wanders into town and hurts somebody?”

“Should we toss it in prison?”

Sasha nodded. Yeah, yeah, she could work with that.

“Well, I say we eat it in return. It probably tastes great with butter.”

“What!” Sasha shouted, the sheer weight of the suggestion causing her to stop her struggling.

“Or we could filet it!” A one armed frog suggested.

“Wait wait wait, slow down!”

“Or we could boil her! A tasty stew for the whole village!”

“No no no, wait, we can talk about this! I was joking! It was a joke! Can we go back to that ‘prison’ idea?”

“Yeah, a stew, that sounds nice.” Another frog said, nodding.

“I dunno, should we really be eating this? We don’t know what it is.”

“Yes! Listen to that guy!” Sasha said, still being ignored.

“Eh, we’ll decide on the way.”

Grabbing some of the ropes, Sasha let out a squeak as she was suddenly pulled across the ground. The wet mud against her back felt like someone roughly rubbing slime into her wounds, and she wished for a brief moment that she had ordered Anne to give her the good shirt. Behind her, the frogs began their journey back to their town.

“Wait, what do we about this place?” One of the frogs asked, motioning around to, well, everything.

“Leave it? Trash it? Who cares?” Toadstool replied, before leading the group back into the woods.

Sasha would probably be a lot madder if she wasn’t currently panicking.

An hour later, Anne and Marcy were minutes away from their triumphant return. The road, leading towards the camp, ended at what appeared to be some kind of diner. But there was no body there at the time, and Marcy wasn’t sure there had been anyone there in a long time, judging by how run down and terrible it was. Following Sasha’s orders, they hadn’t approached it.

The other direction led to a small village, which was much more interesting. Sasha was going to be so proud of them! An actual village, with actual people! They were practically back home already.

“And that’s the entire plot of Tales of Tails 1. Now, Tales of Tails 2 does something that I actually really enjoyed, where you start the game as the antagonists of ToT 1, although I suppose they’re closer to anti-heroes, since they actually understand the villain’s plan…”

Anne sighed in relief as she made her way closer to the camp, soaked to the bone and looking forward to a rest around the fire. And most of all, something to distract Marcy from her incessant talking. It’s not that Anne wasn’t interested in the entire lore behind one of Marcy’s many favourite stories, but there was only so much one could bear at once, and she was at her limit break.

“Sasha, please tell me you have something new to discuss…” Anne said pre-emptively, bursting through the trees into the camp. Only to freeze in place as her vision cleared. Marcy bumped into her from behind as result, nearly spilling the resources they’d gathered on the way. Never waste time, that was Sasha’s common saying that she never actually said at any point.

“Hey, what’s the big idea, Anne?” Marcy asked, before looking around herself.

“Oh.” She simple said.

The camp was in tatters. The ramshackle roof they’d made had caved in completely, allowing pools of water to gather in the small ditch they were using as a bed. Several broken spears littered the ground and poked out dangerously towards the wild. The logs they used as chairs had been ‘overturned’ and Sasha’s things were littered across the ground. The fire was long since extinguished.

“W…what happened?” Anne asked, walking forward nervously.

“Sasha? Sasha!”

“She wouldn’t have left, would she? Where would she even go?” Anne asked again, turning towards Marcy. “Did something attack the camp?”

“Even if something did, Sasha would have come back here to wait for us. She wouldn’t abandon us if she had a choice.”

“But then what happened?”

Walking around the camp, Anne tentatively poked the upturned ‘furniture,’ struggling to make sense of what she was seeing. It wasn’t a pretty sight, and it made her mind flare up with dozens of horrifying scenarios. Sasha couldn’t be…dead, could she? But that made no sense; if she’d tried to defend the camp, there would be blood, or something. Anything to tell them she was injured. So she had to be fine, for now, at least.

But running away for good was equally unlikely. Anne glanced over at her friend in confusion.

“Anne…you might wanna look at this.” Marcy said slowly, beckoning her over.

Looking down, Anne focused on the small, person sized ditch leading into the jungle. Almost as if something had dragged a person sized object away. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together.

“Something took her.” Marcy said.

“It must have been those frogs I saw!” Anne replied, jumping to conclusions. “They found out that we’re here and came to kidnap Sasha! Marcy, we have to do something! We have to rescue her!”

“We need to get her back!” Marcy agreed.

Running over to her writing ‘desk,’ which was more of a tree stump, Marcy unceremoniously flipped it over, revealing a cache of goodies that Anne hadn’t even realized existed. Diving into the pile, Marcy dug around for a moment, before pulling out a spear tipped with the spine of a Razorworm.

“Catch!” She shouted, tossing it over to Anne.

“Marcy, what is all this?” Anne asked, confused, peering into the hole.

“No time to explain, take this too.”

A large, broad shield flew towards her, and Anne caught it roughly. It appeared to be made of bone, but she couldn’t tell what kind.

“Did you make this?”

Rushing over to her, Marcy slung a ‘bag’ of bright blue mushrooms over her shoulder. Anne recognized them immediately. They’d nearly taken Marcy’s arm off when she first tried to pick them, exploding into a spore filled cloud that left the entire patch in a crater, and thus Marcy had named them ‘boomshrooms.’ Anne wasn’t entirely sure that it was safe for her to carry them around like that; all it took was the slightest pressure to set them off.

“Well, yeah. You didn’t think I spent all my time just writing, did you?”

Anne felt a little ashamed to admit that she had.

“That’s what I thought. Now come, let’s go save our friend!”

Charging into the woods, Anne hastily chased after her friend. It wasn’t hard to catch her though, since Anne was the more athletic of the two, and Marcy was…well, a nerd.

Running up beside her, Marcy slowed down enough that they could talk comfortably.

“So anyway,” Marcy started, “Tales of Tails 2 does something I really liked…”

Anne just sighed sadly.

Meanwhile, deep in the jungle itself, Sasha was not having a good time.

“I’m not a monster! Let me go, you slimy, sticky science experiments!

“Hey, compliments will get you nowhere, freak.”

“That’s a lie, and I know it!”

A brief flash of pain exploded on the back of her head as she was pulled over a sharp rock; the ropes digging into her sides and making it hard to react beyond a brief groan. “Hey, watch it!”

Having been given a moment to calm down, Sasha’s emotions instead leaned heavily towards righteous anger and a desperate need to please. Anything to buy her time. How long would it take for them to drag her back to town? The girls hadn’t discovered it earlier, so it couldn’t be nearby, that left, what, a handful of hours? Until…

Sasha swallowed loudly.

“Look, can we just…please, can someone talk to me, even for a moment?” Sasha asked, hopefully, to no avail.

This wasn’t working.

She needed an ‘in.’ She needed a wedge in the door that she could use to squeeze into the conversation. She just…needed a single moment of weakness that she could use to start twisting her way inside.

And she could do it. She knew she could it, just give her a chance, she could solve everything. She could get the girls home, but she just needed that initial push!

Gritting her teeth, Sasha seethed silently.

A strange sound caught her attention, different from the sound of wet mud being dragged across her face, or the quiet murmur of the frogs around her quietly talking to themselves. It was music, an unmistakable tune that was pleasing to the ear and undeniably out of place in the mushroom forest they’d found themselves walking through.

The frogs stopped pulling her for a moment, giving Sasha time to spit the mud out of her mouth.

“Hey, it’s Wally!” Someone shouted, as the frogs rushed past Sasha in a wave to greet their friend.

With all eyes off her, Sasha took the opportunity to try and escape again. Diplomacy was good, but if she could also just sneak away unnoticed, she was going to take that opportunity was well. Wriggling despite how tight her bonds were; Sasha kept an ear open as she struggled.

“Wally, you were right this time! There was a horrifying monster out in the jungle!”

“Where’d you wander off to anyway, you were right behind us!”

“You wanna see it, we’ve been dragging it for ages.”

Stepping past the group with a twirl, Wally bowed. “Now now, my adoring fans, one at a time, please!”

Stopping her escape attempts now that focus was back towards her, Sasha took a good look at the new frog that had just appeared.

Little hat, accordion, one eye.

Oh, this was the frog that Anne saw! He was probably the one that had started this whole mess! No doubt he was some kind of highly respected superstar.

Befriending him would probably be just as good as befriending the mayor, Sasha decided, licking her lips.

“I promise you all, I’ll write a ballad about this moment!” Wally said, bowing again as the frogs returned to their positions and started to drag Sasha away again. It wasn’t until she was dragged past him, and he finally got a good look at her, that his brow furrowed.

“Wait, wait, wait, everyone!” The frog said, “This isn’t the monster that attacked me!” Wally said, rushing to the front of the crowd and waving his arms erratically.

The crowd stopped. “What?” One of them asked.

“The monster I saw was darker than this. She had dark hair, like a bush, or a mossy stone; full of leaves like one too. And an evil grin, and two melon sized lumps on her chest.”

Sasha felt a flash of jealousy, before suppressing the thought.

“Now, simmer down there, Wally. What exactly would you be implying here?”

Wally put a hand to his chin. “I think you know what I’m saying.”

Lumbering over to her, Toadstool leaned over Sasha so that they were eye to eye. It suddenly occurred to Sasha that, if Toadstool wanted, he could probably crush her underfoot right now and there was nothing she could do stop him.

“Beast! Tell us now if there are more of you out there.”

Sasha didn’t even hesitate.

“No, I’m the only human here. He must just be mistaken.”

There was a moment of silence, before uproarious laughter. Much knee slapping was shared among the mob, much to Sasha’s confusion over how what she said was the slightest bit funny. Unless…

Oh no, did they already know about Anne and Marcy? Did they know she was lying? No no no, Sasha hadn’t considered that. They already didn’t trust her; if they knew she was willing to lie, she was boned! Any chance she had of talking them down was gone if she’d just wasted that single thread of trust she had. Mind running a mile a minute, Sasha quickly figured out how to best fix this situation before it became unsalvageable.

“Um, what I meant was…” Sasha started, before the fat toad leader cut her off.

“Classic One-Eyed Wally! Ever the crazy kook you are. Just look at this thing, you really think it could have moss for hair? Oh, maybe it IS the Mossman you’ve talked about.”

“No, I know what I seen! She was different the last time!”

“Oh ho, sure! It was a completely different creature, no doubt. Why, I bet her skin just changes colour when scared, like a lizard! Isn’t that right, everyone?”

The crowd let out a unanimous cheer.

“No, I’m not lying! She was different! There’s…there’s got to be more! Don’t believe her!” Wally shouted, as the crowd started to pan out and ignore him. Sasha leaned back, as best she could while getting pulled along, and smiled to herself. Locking on to Wally, Sasha felt her smile widen even further.

Yes. There was her ‘in.’

Already, she could see the words she’d need. And thanks to another stroke of luck, it wasn’t long until Wally walked over to the incapacitated Sasha, and jumped up onto her chest, using her as in impromptu chair as she was slowly moved forwards.

Sadly, he idly fiddled with his instrument, a glum look on his face.

“Hey…hey, Wally?”

He looked at her. Yeah, yeah, now it was all coming together.

“Hey, don’t feel too bad about being wrong, alright? Nobody is gonna look down on you for it. We all make mistakes; the important thing is that we realize that they don’t make us bad people. Our mistakes don’t make us stupid, or foolish, or less than anyone else. They’re natural.”

She flashed Wally an innocent smile, perfected after years of usage.

“So you didn’t get a good look at me last night. It was dark! You were scared. That’s nothing to feel sad over. You did the right thing by rallying everyone anyway. Focus on that. Instead of your terrible failure.”

“T…thanks.”

“No problem. Just keep that chin up, and stay positive. Think about all the good you’ve done.”

Giving Wally a wink, Sasha continued. “You can call me Sasha. Sasha Waybright. I’d shake your hand, but I’m a little…tied up right now. Get it? Haha.” Sasha said, unable to even wiggle her hand.

Wally chuckled.

“Quiet back there!” One of the frogs at the front shouted.

“No no, wait a moment,” Wally shouted back, which filled Sasha with glee.

“You can call me One-Eyed Wally. It’s what everyone else does. Can you guess why?”

“…because you have one eye?”

“Darn! How do people always guess that?”

Sasha laughed. Not that she actually thought it was funny, it was just what Wally was expecting her to do. But she knew well that she needed to keep the conversation going. Let your friend think too much, instead of talking to you, and they started to think the wrong way. Any topic was a good segue.

“Hey, that’s a cool instrument you got there. You play?”

Wally held up his accordion. “I do. Do you want to hear a short little ditty?”

The entire mob groaned loudly.

“Now look what you’ve done.” One of them commented.

Not taking her eyes off Wally, Sasha tried and failed to shrug. “What are you talking about? Wally, I would LOVE to hear a song. You know, I used to play the piano myself back home, I think I was pretty good at it,” Sasha said, lying through her teeth.

Wally paused. “What’s a piano?”

It hadn’t occurred to her that they hadn’t invented the piano yet. Wasn’t the piano invented really early in history? Like, before the accordion? Marcy would know.

“It’s an instrument.”

Wally just stared at her.

“It’s like…a giant accordion. Except when you push the buttons, instead of making accordion noises, it makes a small hammer hit a string really hard, and the string makes noise. There’s, like, a hundred different strings.”

“That’s a ridiculous idea for an instrument. I love it!”

Standing up, conveniently on top of Sasha, Wally saddled his instrument and began to play; his noise loud and restrained. With a voice that sounded a little too much like a dying frog, he added lyrics to his song.

And Sasha just lay back and smiled. Yeah. She had plenty of time to get out of this mess.

-

“Don’t tell him to stop. Tell him to stop, and it’s over. Endure it, Sasha. Endure it.”

Sasha repeated this mantra in her head. This was probably the worst music she had ever heard. And she had now heard it, on loop, for nearly six hours. If she hadn’t had experience dealing with Marcy’s constant droning about inane minutia, she’d have cracked ages ago. But even with all that preparation, she still was on the verge of ending it all and asking Wally to stop.

But she couldn’t. If she asked Wally to stop now, before they were friends, he wouldn’t help her. She wouldn’t be able to make him help her.

And worse, it had ruined her chances of talking to anyone else, as nearly every frog gathered had shoved moss in their ears by now, leaving her alone with Wally to say or do what she wanted.

Still though, he just kept going! Each song was worse than the last, she felt like she’d aged fifty years just being dragged across the jungle. She…she had to do something, she had to change the subject.

“Wally!” She shouted.

The music stopped abruptly as Wally was thrown of balance, tumbling off Sasha and landing on his head in the mud next to them.

Luckily, if Wally blamed her for the accident, she didn’t let it show, hastily jumping back ot his webbed feet and pulling his hat from the earth. In a single bound, he leapt back onto Sasha’s body, sitting down comfortably so they could talk face to face.

“Sorry. I was just…trying to speak over the music! It’s very…” Sasha’s eye twitched, “good.”

“Ay, don’t you worry about me, lass. Ol Wally’s been through rougher scrapes, and tougher escapes. A little mud won’t hurt me none.”

He crossed his legs, “So what’s on your mind, Sasha Waybeast?”

“Listen, Wally, it’s about this whole ‘beast’ thing. You…don’t think I’m a monster, do you?”

Wally’s expression dropped as he broke eye contact, which was a boon to Sasha’s spirit. She’d played this game of wills before, and she knew that it was basically over the moment your opponent lost the ability to look you in the eyes.

“Well, maybe not a monster. More…more of a beast, certainly. Just a tad scary to look at.”

“Sure, I look little odd, but you wouldn’t judge someone based on their looks, would you? A smart frog like you, you’re wiser than that. You know that the only thing that matters is someone’s heart. And mine is reaching out to you.”

“W…well, you tried to eat me! You won’t trick ol Wally that easily.”

“I wasn’t trying to eat you. Look at my face, Wally. Is this the face of a liar?” Sasha asked, making her eyes water, “I was trying to ask for help, because you were the first person I’d seen in weeks. Sure, I was maybe a little aggressive, but you would be to if you…if you were…”

Sasha started to ‘cry.’

“If you’d been alone for a month as well. Out there, fighting for your life. I…I just want to be safe again. But…but I guess everyone just hates me. Like they always do.”

Standing up, Wally shifted his position so that he was sitting on Sasha like a log, his legs dangling over her left side.

“Oh.”

“Can you imagine what it feels like to always have everyone push you away?”

Wally offered no response, but awkwardly played with the bellows of his accordion as he let Sasha’s words sink into his mind. Mindfully, he deflated in front of her, deep in thought. Sasha knew that hunch; that was the hunch of someone she’d accidently struck a nerve on.

“I see. Maybe you are no different.” Sasha said, aware that you always needed that one final push, that one disappointing hook to get the other person to start trying to ‘redeem’ themselves.

“N…no, wait…”

“Go back to playing your instrument, Wally. I understand. I don’t blame you.”

Wally’s sad song played for another hour, before a blinding light crashed into Sasha’s face

“Ah, finally, we’re home.”

“Oh, thank goodness!” Sasha said, before remembering why the frogs were dragging her ‘home.’ “Oh right, that’s bad for me.”

To Sasha’s surprise, the town was actually…well, a town. They had a solid stone wall that worked to deter most of the less dangerous creatures from entering; it had well maintained roads that led to shops and homes, all of which were lovingly decorated or pleasing to look at. And yet, despite the road, they were a mismatched bunch.

Half of the buildings were built directly into the water, accessible only to those born with powerful swimming feet. They were built directly into gigantic logs, made of hollowed out mushrooms, decorated with rusting pipes and lively leaves alike. Giant dew drops gathered in the cradle of plant life. It gave the town an aura almost as if it was alive. Those that didn’t had roofs of hay, or were made out of roughly cut lumber; built with the idea that they would be easily destroyed, and just as easily rebuilt.

They even had a town hall, with a magnificent, immaculate, belltower. It was surreal that she could see the open sky, without a tree in sight, and even more surreal that this was surreal. They even had a welcome sign!

“Welcome to Wartwood.” Sasha said quietly, mostly to herself. “Slow to accept and slower to respect.”

That wasn’t good.

The regular residents of the town stared at her, mostly in shock, as she was dragged to the town square. It was no surprise that they started to follow her, amazed that such a strange creature could even exist. In a way, it made Sasha feel a little proud. All this attention, just for her, she could revel in it all day if given the chance.

The town square was another picture of medieval pride. The fountain in the middle, modelled after some froggy ancestor no doubt, was simple. Little more than a pool of water. What was far more concerning, was the humongous bronze pot the villagers had dragged into town, almost twice as big as Sasha was, and filled with water. At its base, many frogs hurried to gather wood for the coming fire.

“Um…W…Wally? Can…can we talk real quick?” Sasha said, suddenly reminded of the stakes.

Sasha felt herself drop as the frogs carrying her reached the end of the line. A shadow fell over her, and she let out a groan as the Mayor put his foot on her chest, leaning heavily on her as he addressed the crowd. She grit her teeth, but it was more from the indignation than anything.

She was not a foot stool. She would never BE a foot stool.

Sasha made another note to ruin this toad’s life once everything was going her way again.

“Well, well, noble citizens of Wartwood; I think it’s clear to everyone that Wally was right for once! There was a monster in the woods, hunting our children, endangering our lives, putting our very way of life at risk.”

Still sitting on Sasha’s legs, Wally got up to try and leave, only for the Mayor to grab him and hold him up to the crowd.

“What a responsible little frog he is! Let’s all give him a round of applause!”

A loud cheer exploded out of the crowd, ringing into Sasha’s ears as she could only look up at Wally, who stared down at her mournfully. He let out a smile for everyone watching, but Sasha could see he didn’t mean it. He was conflicted, which was exactly what Sasha wanted.

“Now I know we usually look down on him for being a bit of a kook, but I think we can all agree he’s done the right thing here. Why, if it wasn’t for his frenzied stories, I doubt we would have gone after this monster at all.”

“Wait, what?” Sasha said, as Wally looked away. That…that had to be lie, right?

“And let’s not forget the most important person here. Me! Why, as your protector, I would be remiss if I didn’t handle threats like this before they showed up. Remember that this week, remember that…”

“Toadstool cares!” The entire crowd chanted back.

“That’s right!”

Sasha rolled her eyes, but felt her heart leap as Wally was placed back on her chest and Toadstool removed his foot.

“Now let’s get this…thing, in the pot. I’m sure you’re all eager for your free dinner, courteous of me, Mayor Toadstool.”

Sasha felt herself lurch as the frogs once again picked up her ropes, pulling her up some wooden scaffolding towards the top of the pot.

“Well, Lass, this is where we part, I reckon.” Wally said suddenly, leaping off her.

Sasha’s blood turned to ice.

“N…no! Wait, Wally! Wally, you can’t just leave me here!”

Climbing higher and higher, Sasha was given a great view of the entire crowd, and more specifically, Wally making his escape through it. This was bad, this was really bad. Panicking, Sasha writhed harder in her bonds as she was pulled to the top.

“Wally!”

Was all she could get out before a rough kick sent her tumbling forward into the water.

Meanwhile, outside the village, Anne and Marcy huddled against the stone barricade that separated the village from the jungle. Using her phone’s zoom function as a binocular, Marcy watched the scene as it ensued.

Anne had been right. They were talking frogs.

And right now, they were dragging her friend towards a very unfriendly looking pot.

Her trail had led them this far, now the only question was ‘how do they get Sasha out of there?’

For once, Marcy found a way to supress her curiosity. Make no mistake; she wanted to indulge in it really badly. She wanted to just run in there and grab the nearest frog and question him until he died from boredom and then find another frog and then break into their library and read everything she could and then sleep for twenty minutes so she could do it again.

But she could do that later. Glancing at Anne, Marcy was reminded that there were more important things to focus on right now.

“They’re Bullywugs!” Marcy practically shouted, excited. Anne had to clasp her hand over her mouth, something that had become very common very quickly for some reason, to keep them hidden.

“Shh.” Anne added.

“Don’t worry, they’re all focused on Sasha, they won’t hear us. Look at how they stare at her; you’d think they’d never seen a human before.”

“Maybe they haven’t.” Anne hypothesized.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, there has to be people somewhere. It can’t just be frogs, right?”

Looking back through the phone, Marcy smiled.

“Oh, they’re so cute, look at them!”

Poking her head out, Anne nodded. “What’s a Bullywug?”

“Evil frog people that kidnap innocent maidens and sacrifice them to their dark gods. They have insatiable appetites, and only obey the strongest of villains. That large one there is probably their leader. They were part of the ‘Emperor Charon’ sidequest in Tails of Tales 5.” Marcy said, as if she was reading from a textbook, which she probably was, only one in her head. “Hey, you don’t think the king is evil, do you? And this is a ‘strange outsiders have to oust the tyrant king’ story?”

“Marcy, focus.” Anne said, before thinking a little too hard. “Wait, you said ‘evil?’

“Well, yeah. That large pot over there is probably for Sasha.”

There was a pause.

“They’re going to eat her!” Anne shouted this time, trying to stand up hastily before Marcy pulled her down.

“Calm down, Anne. We’re going to get her out of there, okay?”

Anne took some deep breaths. Right, she was getting worked up again. Things went wrong when she panicked, so it was imperative that she never panic, no matter what. From the gap in the leaves, she could see Sasha get tossed into the pot with a loud splash, and even this wasn’t enough to get her heart pumping. Focus on helping your friends first, above all else. “Okay. What’s the plan?”

“Huh? I thought you were coming up with the plan!”

“What? I don’t plan, you know that! Sasha is the one who plans!”

“And when she can’t, it’s your job!”

Anne stared forward blindly for a second, before shaking her head clear. She…she was right.

Scanning around, Anne focused on a large building in the centre of town, overlooking everything else. And for that reason, it could be seen from everywhere in town. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the best she could come up with on such short notice.

Glancing over at Sasha, who had just bobbed back to the surface and had started angrily shouting at the ‘chefs,’ Anne redirected her attention to Marcy.

“We do the Magician Play.”

“Got it.”

“Head to that building over there,” Anne said, pointing, “make a big distraction. Really big, we need to get everyone looking. After that, I’ll save Sasha and find a way to distract them on our end. Understand?”

“Please, I’m great with distractions, just leave it to me!”

“Marcy!” Anne shouted at her before she left. The memory of last night was fresh in her vision, the vision of that frog she’d seen. It had been terrified. It was possible…

Marcy just looked at her confused, so Anne continued. “Don’t hurt anyone. Look, I know these frogs are trying to hurt Sasha but…but I don’t think they’re bad people. They’re scared, like we are. Don’t hurt them.”

“Got it. Though I admit, that lowers my options for escaping without your help significantly.”

Leaping over the wall and falling flat on her face as her foot got caught, Anne simply watched as Marcy rushed forward; her white cloak fluttering in the wind as she pressed herself against the corner of one of the houses, poked her head down the street to ensure it was safe, and leapt out. Without a word, she pulled a blue mushroom out of her pouch and baseball tossed it through a window of the house across the street. The loud shattering worried Anne, but no one except her seemingly heard it.

That…that was probably going to be fine. Those things weren’t that powerful, right? Marcy had tested them extensively; she knew exactly how much damage they would cause.

Just enough for a distraction, right?

Right.

Following the lead of her friend, Anne snuck over the wall as well. The smell of life was much stronger here and it initially threw Anne off balance. Cooked meats, exotic fruits, so many things that were lost in the jungle suddenly slammed into Anne’s nose. She could nearly taste them as she stalked closer to the crowd.

“Don’t worry, Sasha. I’m coming.”

Back in the town square, Sasha was literally fighting for her life against the toads gathered around her. Biting the bronze lid of the pot, Sasha fought to tear it out of the hands of her attackers and prevent it from being placed across her head.

“Rgh!” Sasha said, twisting her neck painfully, but enough so that the heavy lid went tumbling down the side of the pot, embedding itself in the ground next to it. The spices in the water made her eyes water and her nose burn as she scanned though the crowd again. Admittedly, they did taste great though.

Wally.

She needed Wally.

With a desperation that she never realized she could use before, Sasha called out, “Wally! Please! This isn’t right, you know this! You have to do something!”

Scanning through the crowd, Sasha felt her panic multiply as she realized that she’d completely lost sight of Wally. He wouldn’t have just walked away, would he? That’s not possible, nobody had ever said no to her before, not when she whipped out the old ‘crocodile tears’ technique.

He had to still be here. It was too late to start focusing on someone else, she needed Wally!

Flinching as someone slammed a wooden spoon into her forehead, Sasha spun around angrily.

There he was!

He had been one of the chefs this whole time; she just hadn’t recognized him because he’d changed hats.

Sasha paused for a moment. Had she misjudged him? Did he truly care so little about her, despite everything she’d said? Her words had never failed her like this before, she had no idea what to do, no idea about how to even process something like that.

So she denied it entirely.

Wally must have just put on a disguise so that he could get closer to her.

Swimming over to her, Sasha bopped in the water.

“Wally, please, you have to stop this.”

“I’m sorry, Sasha, but there’s nothing I can do.”

“Bul…that’s nonsense, Wally! Tell them to stop! Tell them that I wasn’t trying to eat you, that this is all a mistake! They’ll listen to you, I know they will!”

“Ay, but look at them, Lassie. They adore me. For once, they put their trust in an old loon’s words and it saved them all. So…so I exaggerated a wee bit, so maybe you’re not that bad. Does it really matter, in the end?”

“This isn’t right! I don’t want to be eaten!”

“No one ever does.” Wally said bitterly.

For once in her life, Sasha humoured the thought that she’d made a mistake.

“Wally, I…” The water became slightly saltier as Sasha let her emotions out, “I’m scared. I’m just a scared girl in a world where everything wants to hurt me. Where nobody will even give me the chance to prove that I just want to go home, that I’m harmless.”

Turning away with a genuine spin for once, Sasha continued.

“I don’t want to eat anybody, I never did. I never will. I’m not some terrifying monster; I’m a teenager from California who’s gotten trapped in a bad situation. Just a girl who needs your help.”

The other chefs glanced at each other nervously.

“You’re better than this, Wally. You’re a good per…a good frog. You can’t just…let them do this to me. You have to do what’s right, no matter what they say!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Sasha could see a frog forcing their way through the crowd. He carried a flaming torch in his hand, and it was clear to anyone what he intended to do with it.

Closing her eyes, Sasha swallowed nervously. She’d done all she could. Everything was in someone else’s hands now.

The pot rocked unsteadily as Wally moved.

“Stop!” Wally shouted, jumping down from the rim of the pot. Landing on top of the torch-bearer, Sasha smiled from ear to ear as she watched the flame roll away and extinguish itself in a nearby puddle.

“Aw, come on, man.” The frog said as Wally stood on his back.

“People of Wartwood, I have a…confession to make. About this beast.” Taking off his hat, Wally fiddled with it slightly while he talked, “I may have…exaggerated some parts of my story. And…made up other parts, lying, essentially. And dreamed other parts of it. And that’s not to mention all the omissions. Call it the instincts of a bard.”

“Wally, what are you talking about?” Toadstool asked, prompting him to get to the point.

“This beast…isn’t a beast.”

The crowd gasped.

“It’s a child. A scared child, called Sasha Waybeast. She doesn’t want to eat us. She hasn’t been raiding our village, or hurting our livestock.” Wally said, before continuing.

The eyes of the crowd burned into him, his feeling of righteousness the only thing suppressing the embarrassment and shame of having to admit that he was wrong.

“She’s lost and needs our help. We should take care of her.”

“Yeah! You tell ‘em, Wally!” Sasha shouted down from on high.

Slowly, the crowd lowered their pitchforks. Silently, the individuals in the swarm started to talk, discussing and trying to come to terms with this revelation. The blood lust of those gathered waned as the general good in their hearts prevailed. With nervous faces and unsure heads, the crowd started to slump.

If they had been wrong, they were about to make a truly terrible mistake. Could any of them take that risk? They’d have to be inhuman.

“Yes, well, that’s good of you to admit Wally, but I still think we should fry it up just to be on the safe side. It’s only the responsible thing to do.” Toadstool said, hands on his hips.

The fervour of the crowd returned suddenly.

“Oh yes, very responsible.”

“Only the smart thing to do.”

“Better safe than sorry.”

Sasha cringed as she watched a handful of new frogs light torches of their own.

“I agree with Wally!” A voice suddenly cried out from the crowd. From her vantage point above everyone, Sasha could see a bright pink frog hop up onto the scaffolding next to her, a determined look on her face.

“Sprig! What are you doing, get down from there!”

“Look at it, everyone! It’s crying! Is that the face of some scary monster? It’s just as scared as we are. If Wally says that it’s harmless, than I believe him!” The frog, who Sasha assumed was this ‘Sprig,’ said, standing up to the crowd.

Huh.

Sasha wasn’t expecting anyone else to actually come to her aid.

She made a note to keep an eye on Sprig. He could be another useful ‘friend.’

A wave of doubt once again washed over the town square. Unable to rile up the crowd to its usual lustre again, the Mayor finally conceded, letting out a deep sigh.

“Beast…or, Sasha, was it?” Toadstool began, “it may be possible that we’ve…misjudged you somewhat.”

Sasha raised an eyebrow at him from the freezing water.

“Will someone get up there and help her out of the pot, please?” The Mayor asked, before focusing back on Sasha. “It could be that we got a little…carried away, what with you looking like some kind of deformed freak and our own healthy dose of mob mentality.”

“Geez, thanks.”

“What I’m trying to say is, if you don’t bother us none, we won’t go out of our way to bother you none. Obviously, we can’t let you stay in the village, you understand. We can’t be having babies cry whenever they see you.”

“That’s good enough for me.” Sasha said, well aware that the alternative was being invited to dinner as the main course.

“We’re just letting it go?”

“Would you rather it stays around here?”

“Okay, fair.”

As a group of frogs walked up the scaffolding towards the rim of the pot to help free her, Sasha sighed.

“Hey Wally?” She said, “Thanks.”

And it was a genuine thanks, unlike many of the other times that Sasha expressed her love.

Internally, Sasha felt all her fight drain from her. She’d done it. Everything was going to be fine. God, she hadn’t even realized how stressed she’d become, all of her muscles ached again like she’d just finished a session of cheerleader rehearsal.

It was all going to be okay from here on out.

And then the town hall exploded.

The wave of heat hit Sasha before the rain of debris did; moss, mud, stone and metal showering over the crowd as everyone ran in panic, immediately focusing on the source of the problem. The once magnificent town hall was reduced to nothing more than a smoking husk, black billows of dirty ash floating out of it as terror spread through the village.

Sasha could only look on in horror, the sudden, much more serious situation causing her rescuers to pause on the stairs.

From this far away, all Sasha could see was the outline of a very familiar person, standing eclipsed against the sun as she held watch at the highest point of the building. Spreading her wings, her moth suit spread a long shadow across the ground, making her look like an inhuman hybrid monster once again.

“Marcy?”

A distinctly human voice bellowed over the assembly. “Citizens of Wartwood! You have angered the Lady of the Crows! Through your evil ways, you have brought this reckoning upon yourself! For having the audacity to kidnap my friend, I have wrought her suffering back tenfold!”

Oh no.

She was getting into a character.

Swimming as fast as she could towards Marcy while remaining in the pot, Sasha screamed as loud as she could.

“Marcy! What the hell are you doing! You need to stop this right now, this is insane! Everything is fine; you’re going to ruin everything! Stop!”

If she could hear her, Marcy didn’t relent. “Behold now my power! The power of righteousness! Of friendship!”

With a wave of her hand, another series of explosions rocked the village, sending another cloud of debris into the air.

“My home!” Someone cried.

“Wow, friendship is really strong.” Someone commented, turning to a random frog next to him, “You wanna be friends?”

“Yeah, sure.”

The whole pot shook, and looking down, Sasha could see another familiar face. She hadn’t even seen her approach; she was so focused on the spectacle of Marcy. “Anne!”

Shoulder pushing against the pot, Anne put all her strength into moving it forward. Despite being a pool of water larger than Anne herself, she found that, if she put all her energy into it, she could make the pot budge, just slightly.

“Don’t worry, Sasha! I’m going to get you out of there!”

“Forget about me!” Sasha shouted back.

“Wh…what?”

“You need to stop Marcy right now! They’re friends, Anne! They’re friendly!

“She’s all the way on the other side of town! Look, we need to distract everyone so she can get out of here; we’ll worry about all this back at camp, okay? If they’re friendly, they’ll understand.”

“Not after you just destroyed half their village! Did you tell her to do that?”

“No, she just…did that. Don’t worry about it! You’ll find the right words to calm them down, that’s your thing.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s easy!” Sasha said, not even entertaining the idea that it might be impossible.

“…sorry. Anyway, hold on, I have the perfect distraction for Mar-Mar.”

Grounding herself, Anne shoved away the kindling at the bottom of the pot and took hold. Lifting with her knees, as she had been taught, Anne slowly forced the pot to tilt forward. Lacking the strength to move it fully though, Anne grabbed a length of wood to use as a lever. A wave of water poured out of the pot as it wavered precariously. Sasha saw the plan easily, and didn’t like it.

“Oh no! The pots coming down!” Someone shouted, and then panic broke out in the town square.

Holding her breath, Sasha dove under the water just as it finally slipped past balance equilibrium. Even muffled, the deep ‘gong’ of the brass pot hitting the earth slammed into Sasha’s ears, causing physical pain. Her centre of gravity shifted as the water started to flow out, flooding the entire assembly.

Rolling across the cobblestones, Sasha realized that the force of impact had shaken her arm loose. She was already working on untying herself by the time Anne sprinted around the brass obstruction and helped her. All around her was pure confusion. The water had hit the crowd like a physical punch, sending them sprawling. Those that had managed to jump to safety were torn between helping their friends or rushing to the town hall to assess the damage. Everywhere she looked, someone was panicking.

All in all, it was a good distraction.

“Hey!” Someone shouted, and Sasha realized that it was Wally, “That…that’s the real creature I saw!” He said, pointing at Sasha’s friend.

“Huh? Oh, hey dude, looking good.” Anne said, shooting him some finger guns.

“They’re working together! I knew it!” Toadstool said.

“Huh?”

“I’ll explain later, now untie me!” Sasha shouted.

Swept away by the colossal wave, the frogs took far longer to regroup than Anne did to rescue her friend. Leaping to her feet, even if they were currently standing in a foot of water, Sasha stretched her neck as she wiped the water from her eyes.

“Hey Anne, I know you don’t realize how badly you just screwed up, but…if I’d failed, it’s good to know that you had a rescue waiting on the wings for me.”

“Hey, what are friends for?”

Smiling smugly, Sasha motioned for Anne to move.

“Through the crowd, come on!” Sasha added.

It was relatively easy to force their way through the village. Without the advantage of surprise or numbers, the frogs were surprisingly easy to push around. They had made great progress already, and glancing over at the ruins of the hall, Marcy was nowhere to be seen either, probably having already taken advantage of the pandemonium to escape as well.

“I’m sorry, Wally.” Sasha said, rushing past the small frog. They locked eyes for a split second, before Sasha was forced to look away, a rare loss in the battle of the wills she was champion in.

“You…you used me.”

Suddenly, Sasha stopped.

Twisting around, Anne ran backwards for a few steps, “Sasha, we need to keep moving, come on!”

“Go on without me, I need to handle this. It’s important!”

“What are you talking about?”

“End of discussion, just do it!”

Shrugging, Anne spun back around and continued her escape.

Pausing in front of Wally, Sasha spread her arms.

“No no, I didn’t ‘use’ you.” Sasha said, pulling her arms together and raising a finger, “We’re friends! This is just what friends do. They help each other. And you helped me a lot, Wally, remember that!

Wally just stared at her sadly. Glancing over her shoulder to make sure she was still safe, Sasha continued.

“You did a good thing, Wally. Just remember that. Don’t let all…this distract you. I…I never meant for any of this, it wasn’t planned.”

“We’re just scared, Wally. And, I mean, you did try to eat me.” Sasha said, before realizing that the crowd was suddenly looking noticeably bigger and turning to leave. “Anyway, gotta go! We’ll talk about this later, okay?”

“…okay.”

Retreating from the town of Wartwood, Sasha cleared the outer perimeter with agile grace, only sliding slightly on the wet mud as she escaped into the jungle.

Sprinting down the familiar paths, Sasha quickly followed her own tracks towards the camp. A part of her realized that they should probably cover or fill them to ensure that the frogs couldn’t easily find them again, but right now, there was more important things to worry about.

“Sasha!”

Marcy’s voice was unmistakable. Stopping for a moment, Sasha let out a cry of her own.

“Marcy!”

They played a short game of marco polo until they run into each other.

Marcy was covered in soot, and there was a number of tears in her precious moth outfit. Despite this though, she had a big smile on her face, and hugged Sasha without a moment’s wait.

“Where’s Anne?” Sasha asked immediately, focusing on more important things over embracing Marcy.

“Why would Anne not be with you? You were just together a second ago.”

“Okay, fine. We got separated.”

Marcy thought for a moment.

“She’s probably just back at camp already then. Come on, we gotta move!”

“Yeah just…gimme a moment.” Sasha said, slowing down. The same pain that had afflicted her earlier this morning was starting to flare up again. Swallowing roughly, she grit her teeth and rushed forward.

Anne could take care of herself. She was smart; she was probably already waiting for them.

Running up beside her other friend, Sasha stared an angry hole into her body. “And when we get back to camp, you and I are going to have a long talk about your actions today. Understand?”

Marcy just swallowed nervously.

Leaning against a nearby tree, Anne tried to catch her breath.

She thought she’d put a good bit of distance between her and the town of Wartwood by now. Her feet had been carrying her at full speed for a while now, it would take someone either very determined, or very stupid, to have followed her this whole time. Her sweat tasted salty as she wiped her face.

Looking around, Anne struggled to make sense of where she was. She didn’t recognize this part of the jungle. If anything, it was barely a jungle at all. The ever present trees and vines had lessened so much that it was more of a wooded enclosure. Looking at the horizon, Anne swore she could see the end of the jungle itself, opening to a great plain.

Had…had she run in the wrong direction?

“Sasha?” Anne called, hoping for a response but getting nothing.

“Marcy?”

Walking forward, Anne tried and succeeded at calming down. All she had to do was find her way back to camp. She had her map, and she knew the landmarks, she just needed to find a place to begin.

Wandering aimlessly, Anne stopped her feet suddenly as she realized what was in front of her.

Hidden under the roots and overgrown grass was a gigantic ravine; the light of the sun doing nothing to pierce into its depths. Following its length, Anne realized that it continued for a fair distance, nearly a full kilometre.

Crouching down, she idly tossed a rock into it, waiting for the sound of it hitting the bottom.

It never came.

Huh. This would make a great landmark, now that she thought about it. She’d have to remember to tell Marcy about it.

“I’ve got you now, beast!”

This declaration of aggression caught Anne’s attention immediately, long before she could ask herself why someone would announce their attack before it comes. Spinning around, Anne focused on the source of the noise for a split second, before a clump of moss slammed into her face, blinding her.

Stumbling backwards, Anne quickly cleared her vision, only for it to be blocked again as a small, pink frog tackled her face. He didn’t weigh much, so Anne didn’t so much as stumble backwards as she braced herself. Not that she could if she wanted. The ravine was at her back.

“What the heck? Get off me!” Anne shouted, attempting to grab the frog. Unfortunately for her, this frog was quick and swiftly climbed higher up her head until he was clinging to her scalp. Occasionally, his legs would kick down at her ears.

“No way.” The frog shouted back, beating his hands ineffectively against Anne’s hair like he was playing the bongos. “I’ll defend this town with my life!” He replied, dragging out the ‘life’ into an extended shout that emboldened him further.

Pulling her around by the hair, Anne wobbled precariously close to the edge of the cliff.

“Get off me!”

“No! I’m a…responsible frog!”

“How is getting into fights responsible?"

Swatting at her head, the frog was surprisingly dexterous and proficient at avoiding her strikes. Fumbling around, Anne tried her best to avoid accidentally falling to her knees.

A task that was made harder when a pair of hands covered her eyes.

Blind, disoriented and on the defensive, Anne finally took one step too far to the side. Her skin crawled as she realized that there was no ground under her foot; her entire body swinging sideways as she fell.

The frog attacking her paused for a second. “Uh oh.”

Anne felt his grip on her tighten as gravity took control, and the duo went tumbling into the abyss. Anne felt like now was a good time to start screaming, and apparently, the frog agreed with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s a long night for the beast, and the friend who refuses to leave her.  
> Next time: One Foot in the Cave. Watch for it!


End file.
